EDITORIAL 



^ O ^ 



The plant collector or flower lover is rarely con- 

 cerned about the kind of botany that is taught in 

 the public schools but it would be well for him to 

 keep in touch with such matters if only for the view it 

 gives him of his own part of the science. Botanical science 

 has broadened so rapidly that any one of half a dozen divis- 

 ions of it may now engage the attention of the student for a 

 lifetime. As a consequence educators are not at all agreed as 

 to what is best to teach as "botany" in the High School. The 

 teachers range all the way from those who teach the science for 

 the purpose of "developing, strengthening and disciplining the 

 intellect" without regard to what the pupils may learn about 

 plants- to teachers who endeavor to give the pupil a good 

 knowledge of plants an'd at the end of the course to leave him 

 not only with the ability but inclination to continue the study. 



* * * 



It scarcely need be said, however, that botanical in- 

 struction in the schools, is not intended to make botanists of 

 the pupils. Rather it is to give them a knowledge of the 

 underlying principles of the science. It would surprise many 

 a plant collector to find how small a part the collecting and 

 identifying of flowering plants plays in real botanical teach- 

 ing. Time was when "botany" meant simply learning the 

 names of the parts of a plant, the "analyzing" of a few flowers 

 and the making of an herbarium of a certain number of speci- 

 mens. This no doubt accounts for the assumption by many 

 plant collectors that because they can identify plants they are 

 botanists. In the days we speak of, laboratory work in botany 

 was scarcely known in the high school and field v/ork, aside 

 from gathering flowers had no existence. 



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