Botany as a School-Subject. 507 



like educationalists of other civilised nations, have recognised that in 

 order to round off education, to sharpen and polish the minds of those 

 who are to be educated, it is not only desirable, but necessary, to 

 include in any scheme of liberal education an inductive science, such 

 as Botany. The true end of education, apart from moral training, is 

 to enable man not only to make the best present use, but to realise 

 the utmost potentialities, of his great weapon by which he rules the 

 universe — his mind. By means of the subjects usually taught — 

 Mathematics and Languages — his deductive faculties are greatly 

 developed, but the other side of his mental power, the inductive 

 faculties, are left undeveloped. With your permission, I will there- 

 fore first of all try to show how this great gap in our general 

 educational system can be filled up. Although I do not hold with 

 the current idea that knowledge acquired at school should be of 

 immediate use, I can, however, show that a sound knowledge of 

 Botany is of very great use, especially in a country like ours. I will 

 also try to show that the teaching of Botany might be made to assist 

 the moral training of pupils, and, lastly, I will try to indicate how 

 time for the study of Botany in our schools could be found. 



I will not deal with the question whether any other science 

 is equally good for the purpose for which I recommend Botany. 

 Broadly speaking, one Science is as good as another for developing a 

 scientific spirit in boys and girls, but Botany has the advantage that 

 the material for teaching is everywhere available, a kitchen garden 

 being just as useful for teaching its first principles as the richest wild 

 Flora or the well-stocked greenhouses of large botanical establish- 

 ments. It has, further, the advantage that for its proper under- 

 standing, some fundamental principles of other Sciences, such as 

 Chemistry and Physics, have to be mastered, and thus it does not 

 make the pupil too one-sided ; at the same time I must admit that 

 other Sciences have advantages peculiar to themselves, and circum- 

 stances may make it desirable that these be substituted. On one 

 point, however, I should like to express my disapproval, namely, 

 with regard to the opinion current in this country, that Botany is 

 only suited to girls. Once the great educational value of the teaching 

 of Botany is established, there is no reason why boys, as in German 

 schools, should not learn it also. 



Botany, I maintain, is an excellent subject for making the mind 

 active and alert by developing the scientific instinct in boys and 

 girls. " Of all scientific instincts," Dr. Ganong truly remarks in 

 the book already quoted, " the very foremost is that for exact 

 observation. No others can be of much value if it be lacking." 

 Now, whatever branch of Botany we take up, whether Morphology, 

 which concerns itself with the forms, origin, and relationship of the 

 parts of a plant, or Anatomy, which deals with the internal structure 

 of plants, or Physiology, which deals with the functions their organs 

 perform, or Systematic Botany, which classifies plants — observation, 

 strict observation, and accurate observation is a sine qua non. The 

 material for observation has, however, to be carefully selected by the 



