Botany as a School-Subject. 515 



England for about 9d. each, so that if jP^2^ were spent on the outfit 

 for the teaching of Anatomy and Physiology, it could be carried on 

 as far as school-children can be supposed to know it. In the teaching 

 of Morphology no apparatus is really required. Still, to facilitate 

 matters, a few models may be acquired to help to demonstrate the 

 structure of small flowers, such as the flowersof Grasses. 



One great difficulty teachers have to contend with is the naming 

 of the native plants. Now, as there are at least 12,000 species of 

 flowering plants alone in South Africa, it is manifestly impossible for 

 an ordinary teacher to name the plants in the neighbourhood of the 

 school, but this difliculty is more apparent than real, as we nre 

 always glad to name plants for teachers at the Albany Museum, 

 provided reasonable care has been taken in selecting and transmitting 

 the specimens, which can be sent to me free by post and rail ; 

 besides, similar facilities are available in Cape Town. Every teacher 

 should then, with numbered specimens kept back, form a small local 

 Herbarium for reference ; the formation of a collection of fruits and 

 seeds is also very desirable, and 1 think in many cases the teacher 

 might go a step further and plant some of the native plants round 

 about the school -building. It is wonderful how much help one gets 

 from such a collection of live plants, even if it consists of only a few 

 dozen species. There are also some places, like Kimberley, where 

 it is very difficult to get any wild specimens for class-teaching. Here 

 the formation of a small botanical garden is imperative, and a type 

 herbarium and a collection of fruits and seeds should be acquired by 

 purchase or exchange. 



