BEAL ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 103 



in the swamp, in the woods or the front yard, are hundreds of branches 

 of a hundred kinds of woody phints, the buds of which are formed in 

 summer and resting in winter, some of them waiting to be studied by 

 inquisitive pupils. The branches have pith, wood and bark, to say 

 nothing of \he delicate contents of the buds, !r^tudents can pursue the 

 following order with branches of our elms and tind plenty to do: 



1. Note the general characteristics of branches, including the ar- 

 rangement of buds and the abortive stem above the upper bud. 



2. Lenticels, corky ridges, and the bark. 



3. Leaf-scars, their position, shape, structure. 



4-. Scars left by the bud-scales, and minute buds in their axils. 



5. Scars left by some of the dying buds. 



6. The buds: (a) those containing a stem and leaves; (b) those con- 

 taining flowers. 



The longer I teach, the less I lecture my students and the talks that 

 are given are mostly regarding things which the students have previously 

 examined. As a rule, I have to keep cautioning our instructors not to 

 lecture so much. I have had some of these, Avho apparently delighted 

 to show their wisdom and would spend more than half of the laboratory 

 hour in telling students what they should attempt to discover for them- 

 selves, or in giving other information. Students are inclined to like 

 this plan, as it is much easier and quicker to get information this way, 

 than it is to work it out for themselves. They do not stop to think 

 that they are pursuing the study to learn how to work, rather than 

 to acquire information. 



In 18G9, I gave members of the junior class in Chicago University 

 some lectures on zoology. I had been particular to tell them about the 

 structure of the heart, and the circulation of the blood. Two of the 

 class afterward dissected a dog that was good for nothing else. Thej^ 

 wondered what those broad things were at the large end of the heart, 

 and were going to cut them otf and throw them awaj', not mistrusting 

 that these w'ere the auricles about which I told them the day before. 



In 1885, I gave to an advanced class, five illustrated lectures on the 

 pollination of flowers. After the course, I asked questions and made 

 the following record in my note book: ''As far as the lectures are con- 

 cerned, many points were imperfectly understood, erroneous notions 

 were entertained. The five lectures were to a great extent a loss of 

 time, which could have been spent to better advantage b}' a careful 

 study of the flowers of several living species." 



Better than lectures, I have found the following to work well, not 

 omitting laboratory work. I teach agricultural students something 

 concerning grasses, weeds, parasitic fungi, forestry, plant physiology. 

 After they have done some laboratory work, students are supplied with 

 duplicate books, bulletins, or separates, which treat especially of the 

 subjects in hand. These are read by each one during the laboratory 

 hours, and the students take their time for making good notes. These 

 books and bulletins are a part of the laboratory equipment. For 

 example, beginners study seeds and seedlings of peas and beans for 

 four hours, making some notes and drawings, after which I give each a 

 <-'opy of my bulletin No. 1, on Ekincntarij Science which treats of the 



