PREFACE 5 



are at present the most generally available for school use, 

 and more especially because the new terminology is in 

 such an unsettled state that nobody can say what it will 

 be to-morrow or next day. Hence, while recognizing the 

 desirability of some of the changes proposed, the author 

 does not think it advisable to confuse the beginner by 

 introducing him to a system that is undergoing a period 

 of transition. After all, this is a mere matter of names, 

 and does not affect the point that ought to be kept in view 

 the hereditary relationships of plants. 



The experiments described are for the most part very 

 simple, requiring no appliances but such as the ingenuity 

 of the teacher and pupils can easily devise, as will be 

 seen by a glance at the list on pages 12 and 13 of the text. 



Teachers trained in normal schools, where all the 

 material needed for their work is furnished by the State, 

 and ample time allowed them, are often completely at a 

 loss when transferred to country schools, where no provi- 

 sion is made for laboratory work, and the patrons grumble 

 if called upon to buy so much as a drawing book or a hand 

 lens. Too often they can think of no other resource than 

 to drop botany from the curriculum altogether rather than 

 depart from what they have been taught to consider the 

 only scientific method. It is hoped that the present volume 

 may suggest a better way out of the difficulty, and also 

 that it may be a help to those who have not enjoyed the 

 advantage of a technical training. 



The writer would not underrate the value of histological 

 studies or the advantages of a well equipped laboratory, 

 but since these are at present clearly out of the reach of 

 the great majority of the school population, and more 

 especially of that very class to whom the study of plants 

 is of the greatest practical importance and into whose 

 lives it would bring the greatest amount of pleasure and 

 of intellectual enlargement, it has been made the aim of 

 this book to show that botany can be taught to some pur- 

 pose by means within the reach of everybody. It has 

 also been the author's aim to keep constantly in view the 



