8 PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 



2. TEACHING AND LEARNING PLANT PHYSIOLOGY. 



It is altogether probable, as it is certainly most desirable, 

 that wherever a course in Plant Physiology is taken up, it will 

 be under the direction of one who is both a trained botanist 

 and a skilled teacher; and it is equally likely that any students 

 electing it will already have acquired some proficiency in scien- 

 tific ways of working and thinking. Hence it may seem super- 

 fluous to volunteer advice either upon teaching or upon learn- 

 ing Plant Physiology. But discussion and comparison contribute 

 to progress, and therefore I shall venture to summarize the 

 characteristics which seem to me to mark good teaching and 

 good learning in Physiology; and I shall add thereto some sug- 

 gestions, based upon personal experience, as to profitable pro- 

 cedure in the physiological laboratory. 



The general principles of good scientific teaching apply in 

 full force to a practicum in physiology. The true teacher, for 

 his part, is a liberal but firm leader, a genial though uncom- 

 promising critic, a sympathetic and helpful friend. He studies 

 well the mental character of each student, and quietly treats 

 it in the way best for itself. He teaches largely through exam- 

 ple, aims for optimum rather than maximum results, and seeks 

 to inspire his students to do as well as to know. He utilizes 

 the good and pleasurable instincts in his students, their curi- 

 osity, their pleasure in competition, their artistic sense, their 

 individual talent, and their ambition. At each new step in 

 their work he recalls to them that which they already know, 

 and thus develops a vantage-point in the known from which 

 to lead their sorties into the unknown. He tries always to 

 create a demand for truth before he provides the supply. He 

 habitually illustrates proper inductive procedure; keeps promi- 

 nent the conception of the conservation of matter and of energy; 

 makes clear the true function of observation, hypothesis, experi- 

 ment; and emphasizes training in the logic of evidence, the 

 power to distinguish between the practically proven, the degrees 

 of probability, and the merely possible. He does not shrink 



