to be used, and also of the manual itself, which provides for the 

 essential first-hand experience with plants. Such experience is 

 of the highest importance. The manual represents a distinct ad- 

 vance in botanical instruction in secondary schools because of 

 the way in which it insures abundant experience with plants. It 

 provides outlines by means of which the laboratory presenta- 

 tion of botanical study, as well as the text presentation, may 

 be in accord with the most recently defined ideals for science 

 work in secondary education. 



Textbooks and laboratory manuals of botany are of two 

 types, office made or made through experience. This manual, 

 like the texts with which it is designed to serve, is the result 

 of many years of successful experimentation in secondary-school 

 teaching. This method of developing an outline of study seems 

 to be the only one really worthy of science. If trial, correction, 

 retrial, selection, and elimination that is, the experimental 

 basis are essential in the development of our knowledge of 

 science, surely the same experimental basis is essential to the 

 development of courses of science study. 



Since this manual is the result of such careful experience, it 

 should prove of great value to young people who have the 

 opportunity of using it. QTig w _ 



[xii] 



