102 MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



For at least lialf a school year of daily work in beffinninff botany, I 

 require all students to pursue the jilan of studying plants and not books. 

 By all devices, I seek to get the results of the combined obseryations 

 of all members of the class before I tell them what I think, or before 

 thej" study books on the topic. It makes no difference what grade of 

 a high school or what class in a college they belong to, the process is 

 the same. With young pupils and undergraduates, I do not carrj* out 

 Agassiz's plan to the full extent, but keep it constantly in mind, temper- 

 ing the severity of the breeze to the shorn lambs. 



After the students have learned well how to see for themselves by 

 practicing for eighteen to twenty weeks, in succeeding terms, I am by 

 no means so particular to adhere to this plan. 



In many of our elementary text-books in these times — and they are 

 numerous and multiphing rapidly — most authors recommend the study 

 of what they call types. For example, they advise studying one 

 Spirogyra, one Vaucheria, one Mucor, one Puccinia, one Ascomycete, 

 one Marchantia, one Polytrichum, and so on through from low plants 

 to the highest. In pursuing this plan, my experience convinces me that 

 most students fail to see the connection and loose interest in passing 

 from one isolated family or class to another. It may be well enough 

 to study types, but pupils should not fail to study in that connection 

 a considerable number of species that are somewhat nearly related, 

 and by this means have the benefit of comparing similar objects. 

 After learning the structure of one violet, it is better to examine 

 the structure of at least ten other species, than to spend the same 

 time in studying a single crowfoot, a chickweed, a geranium, a spiraea, 

 a rose, a mint, a phlox, a mallow, a dandelion, a fern; though all of 

 these may be studied at other times in connection with allied forms. 



Twenty-five years ago, we often met teachers in Michigan who re- 

 quired their pupils to begin botany by getting lessons from a text-book, 

 where they saw some pictures and diagrams, instead of plants or some 

 of their parts. This was the practice, especially in winter, when it was 

 claimed that no specimens were to be obtained. I am sorry to say that 

 such persons in some of the back districts are still retained as teachers. 

 Perhaps I ought not to mention this matter, but it isn't three years since 

 I met one of your teachers who occupied a high place, and he followed 

 the book-lesson plan, with little or no use of specimens. Is it possible 

 that he was unable to procure large seeds of some common plants and 

 set his pupils to observing, experimenting, and growing them in the 

 class room? Had he not collected many dry seeds, fruits, and racemes 

 in summer and kept them in bunches or in loose sacks hung on the 

 nails in the rafters of an attic till wanted in winter? The fact appears 

 not to have entered his head, that he could secure each in its season, 

 a great assortment in quantity of the soft fruits, buds of flowers, — that 

 he could keep them in jars in two per cent of formalin till wanted. 

 They will keep their shape and part of their color very well, and the 

 odor of formalin disappears after washing in water for a few minutes. 

 True, we cannot collect roses from a Michigan garden in January, nor 

 maple blossoms in February, but our trees and shrubs in their winter 

 garb furnish excellent lessons to profitably employ pupils for many 

 weeks of winter, and this all comes within the scope of botany, just as 

 much as thouch we examined flowers in May or June. By the roadside, 



