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Written as an obvious protest against| 
the modern methods of teaching botany, 
I’. L. Sargent’s “Plants and Their Uses: 
An. Introduction to Botany” (Holt) pre- 
sents a curious and perhaps helpful’ point 
; of view. The author begins with the as-|. 
| sumption that the obvious and most inter-!. 
esting questions to ask about a plant are , 
“What is it? What is it good for? or 
_ What does it do?” With these as a guid-| 
_ ing principle, it follows that the work ' 
_  @iffers radically from any of the tent 
&: | books now in use. For it lays emphasis, 
) not upon processes such as photosynthesis, 
; respiration, reproduction, and so forth, but 
| upon the plants that touch the a 
a existence of all of us, such as the foods, 
Vi beverages, drugs, fibres, and the like. The) ' 
i” ' first half of the book is taken up with de-|_ 
ty seriptions and historical notes upon the) ' 
. '| introduction into cultivation of all the bet-| ' 
ter-known economic plants. ‘The usual 
routine ground is covered, but tersely and 
with some haste, and the chief emphasis is| ’ 
laid on industrial botany, if there be such 
| a science. It is unfortunate that the first 
+ modern textbook that approaches botany 
from this side should have inaccuracies of 
statement and a certain lack of perspective. 
For instance, opium is a narcotic, not an 
| intoxicant (p. 184); the Para rubber tree 
is Hevea hrasiliensis__nat—H—sasssmn———— 
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