4 PREFACE 



material always at hand are sufficient to outweigh other 

 considerations that might be advanced in favor of estab- 

 lished methods. The leaf has been selected as the starting 

 point mainly because it is the most convenient material at 

 hand in September, when the schools begin; and it is 

 such an important and fundamental part of the plant that 

 a thorough acquaintance with its nature and functions will 

 clear the way to an understanding of many of the problems 

 that will face the student later. 



It is not expected that all the work outlined in the 

 book will be done just as it is written, and much of it may 

 even have to be omitted altogether. Each teacher can 

 select such parts as are suited to the circumstances of his 

 school, passing lightly over some topics, giving more 

 attention to others, as material and opportunity may 

 suggest. The study of botany is necessarily sectional 

 to some extent, because nature is so, but the method 

 here outlined is of universal application and every teacher 

 can select his own specimens in accordance with the 

 directions given in the body of the book. Prominence is 

 given to the more familiar forms of vegetation presented 

 by the seed-bearing plants, as the author believes that for 

 ordinary purposes the best results are to be obtained by 

 proceeding from the familiar and well known to the more 

 primitive and obscure forms. The reverse order may be 

 better for the trained investigator; the other is simpler 

 and more attractive, and for ordinary purposes the only 

 practicable one. The average boy and girl will learn more 

 of what it concerns them to know about stem structure, for 

 instance, from a cornstalk, and a handful of chips, or even 

 from the graining of the timber out of which their desks 

 are made, than from the most elaborate study of the xylem 

 and the phloem and the collenchymatous tissues. For we 

 must bear in mind that the object of teaching botany in 

 the common schools is not to train experts and investigators 

 but intelligent observers. 



In giving the botanical names of plants the terminology 

 of Gray's handbooks is adhered to, partly because, they 



