BEAL ON THE STUDY OF BOTANY. 109 



agree for a single year as to what should be taught or how it should be 

 taught. In his report for 1888-1881), President Eliot, of Harvard, said: 

 ^'During recent years every college teacher has been forced to answer 

 anew the personal questions, — AMiat can I best teach and how shall I 

 teach it? Every man has really been obliged to take up new subjects 

 and to treat them by new methods. There is not a single member of 

 the faculty who is today teaching what he taught fifteen years ago, as 

 he then taught it. Each teacher has to recast his work . . . and 

 the faculty has to invent, readjust, and expand the comprehensive frame- 

 work of the course." 



Altogether likely most of those present agree as to the great value 

 of a training in botany. I venture to give my opinion: 



1. There is nothing better for training the powers of observation. 



2. The comparison of one plant or one part of a plant with another 

 cultivates the power of inductive reasoning. 



3. In learning the definition of new words, the memor}' is strength- 

 ened, the vocabulary enlarged. 



4. There is nothing better to train the power of precise and brief 

 description in using each word with a definite meaning. 



5. To follow successive changes that take place in shape, proportion, 

 size, color, as seen in one plant from seed to maturity, develops the 

 observation, powers of description, and the judgment. 



6. By experimenting to learn the results that follow changes in tem- 

 perature, light, moisture; by mutilating or removing certain parts, 

 many facts may be obtained enabling one to arrive at certain correct 

 conclusions. 



7. To become acquainted with the minute anatomy of plants by the 

 aid of sections made in different directions and seen with a compound 

 microscope, cultivates the imagination, as well as the powers of ob- 

 servation and reasoning. 



8. The preparation of material for examination trains the hand to 

 precision as well as the e^'e and the judgment. 



9. "In studving botany a student gains in analvtic and synthetic 

 powers." (T. C. Abbot.) 



10. "It is the best system of practical logic, and the stud}- exercises 

 and shapes at once both the powers of reasoning and observation, more 

 probably than any other pursuit." (Asa Gray, who possessed a good 

 knowledge of mathematics and Latin as well as of botany.) 



• 



What shall I say of the value of training acquired by studying bacteria 

 and lichens, by experimenting to demonstrate that certain fungi, like 

 wheat rust and many others, assume two distinct forms on each of 

 two different plants? 



In these times text-books for beginners are appearing in rapid succes- 

 sion, in great numbers. It is a barren month in which one or more is 

 not published. In two instances within my knowledge, the editor has 

 prepared two books for 3'oung students, and in one case three books 

 by one author have appeared within a period of two years. New text- 

 books are alwavs welcome to teachers, but the diflicultv of selecting 



