26 PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 



The students follow, asking, at regular times, such questions 

 as they wish. When the experiment is complete and the results 

 are ready, or when it is time for the application of some special 

 test, the experiment is again brought before the class, the results 

 are exhibited and discussed, and the tests are applied. The 

 completed arrangement, showing the results of the experiment, 

 is then placed in the laboratory, and each student is required 

 to make a study of it, exactly as if he had performed it for him- 

 self. Then, using as a guide a mimeographed outline which 

 suggests, but does not tell, the principal matters involved in the 

 subject, the students are required to write, with proper illus- 

 trations, a clear account of the object, method, results, and 

 general bearing of the experiment. The method is a fair, though 

 not entirely satisfactory, substitute for actual work by the indi- 

 vidual. 



With so much that is attractive and important pressing for 

 the attention of the student, it is necessary for the teacher to 

 carefully seek out means whereby the best return in physiolog- 

 ical training and knowledge may be derived from the time and 

 energy the student can give to the subject, taking account, of 

 course, of the many practical limitations imposed by cost of 

 materials, difficulties of manipulation, arrangement of the col- 

 lege year, and the like. The ideal in this matter is the recon- 

 ciling of all these factors to an harmonic optimum. The search 

 for this optimum has been my pleasing task for some years 

 past, and my experience is embodied in the outlines of Part II, 

 upon the construction of which I would now offer some remarks. 

 The work is all presented to the students as a series of problems, 

 which are connected by comments and explanations designed 

 both to show the relations and bearing of the subjects, and also 

 to suggest the lines along which the scientific mind would natu- 

 rally progress from one to another. I have aimed to include 

 all physiological topics of consequence, and in general I have 

 tried to treat them with an amount of emphasis directly pro- 

 portional to their importance, subordinating by briefer treat- 

 ment all lesser matters, no matter how simple or pleasing their 



