THE PLANT WORLD 283 



It is pleasing to note that Professor E. O. Wooton, of the New Mexico 

 College of Agriculture, is alive to the possibilities of using the native 

 plants of the region for ornamental planting. Any one who has visited 

 towns in the arid portions of the United States has noticed the attempts 

 to grow plants ill adapted to desert conditions at a heavy cost for water. 

 " Native and Ornamental Plants of New Mexico "* ought to prove dis- 

 tinctly educative in respect to this matter. 



Teachers in rural schools especially could make good use of a bulletint 

 treating of " Weeds Used in Medicine." Illustrations and descriptions 

 are given of a number of common weeds which are sources of drugs now 

 imported from abroad. Directions for collection and curing are also given. 

 It is quite possible for these plants, which are regarded as merely a pest, 

 to be made a by-product of farming, and thus a source of income, with a 

 slight additional expenditure of effort. The children might well learn 

 to collect and cure these weeds and get in this way some ' ' practical 

 education." 



An excellently illustrated account of the tropical forest is to be 

 had in Bulletin 48, Bureau of Forestry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, 

 entitled "The Forests of the Havv-aiian Islands," by W. L. Hall. 

 Bulletin 46 contains a full description of the culture and manipulation 

 of the Basket Willow by W. F. Hubbard, together with a chapter on the 

 injurious insects by F. H. Chittenden. 



Living materials for plant study may be obtained from the Plant Study 

 Company, Cambridge, Mass. 



Book Reviews. 



The Teaching of Biology in Secondary Schools. By F. E. 



Lloyd, A. M., and Maurice A. Bigelow, Ph. D., Professors in Teachers 



College, Columbia University. Pp. i-ix and 485. New York : 



Longmans, Green «& Co., 1904. 



That the teacher of any subject needs a special preparation for teach- 

 ing, in addition to a knowledge of subject-matter, is a truth that even yet 

 fails of general recognition. The prospective teacher of botany, for 

 example, is advised to prepare for his life work by merely studying more 

 botany. If success in the class-room comes at all it is only by the " cut- 

 and-try " method, and rule of thumb, instead of well established prin- 

 ciples serving to guide the instructor. Thus teaching becomes a trade and 

 not a profession. 



Those who believe that there are matters of more vital concern to the 

 secondar}' school teacher than enlarging the boundaries of our present 

 knowledge, and who realize that the teacher, as a teacher, needs, not so 

 much to know more things to teach, but how to organize and present 

 what is already known will welcome the recent volume by Lloyd and 

 Bigelow on '"The Teaching of Biology in Secondary Schools." 



The second part of the book, by Professor Bigelow, deals with the 

 teaching of Zoology and Human Physiology, and does not concern us 

 here. The first 236 pages by Professor Lloyd discuss The Teaching 



»Bulletin 51, Agri. Exp. Station, Mcsala Park, N. Mex. 

 t Fanners' Bulletin 18S, U. S. Dept. of Agri. 



