74 Proceedings of the Ohio State Academy of Science. 



of the plant will result, not a memory of words on printed pages 

 and in note books. The study will have been attacked as one 

 must i)ursue the problems that will confront him in life, 

 which he must conquer largely for himself. The thoughtful 

 student will see the advantage of this method of study over the 

 plan too commonly followed, and will soon understand how much 

 more it means for him to study a thing through for himself. 

 The indolent and poorly trained may fall by the way, but so will 

 both of these in the work of real life to follow. We should 

 follow proper methods, but should, at the same time, make the 

 work so difficult as to call for strenuous effort constantly. 



After the student understands Bryophytes thoroughly, he is 

 ready to attempt the much more complex and difficult 

 Pteridophytcs. He will know the moss archegonium, and his 

 botanical imagination will enable him to picture before his mind's 

 eye the fern archegonium from descriptions before he has seen 

 it. Likewise, many fact of comparative morphology and 

 physiology will be thoroughly understood and ready for use in 

 acquiring further knowledge of this difficult group. But the 

 student will find, in ferns, structures unknown to him ; and these 

 can scarcely become realities to him except by direct observation, 

 since they can be connected with nothing found in the simpler 

 plants previously studied. 



Finally, we pass to the seed-plants, nor may the teacher 

 safely assume that these most complex plants are easy to under- 

 stand, except in a very superficial way, because of knowledge of 

 lower forms. Here again first steps are slow if the student is 

 really to know anything about these plants, which are studied, 

 most of all and so often without any foundation in the morphol- 

 og}^ and physiology of lower plants, and consequently in a very 

 slipshod, sui)erficial and unsatisfactory manner, admissible only 

 where a science may with some degree of propriety be treated as 

 a hodgepodge, never in college where every science should be 

 treated in a systematic way. 



After a course has been taken that is sufficiently coherent to 

 give the thorough, systematic science training which should 

 come at the outset, it makes less difference what work comes 



