KNOWING HOW TO KNOW HOW 351 



publication of the Department is the Weekly News Letter, 

 which contains brief, timely articles and notes. Some mem- 

 ber of the class might subscribe for this and keep it in 

 orderly file on the bookshelf. 



The question with which we started is, How can we get 

 the best information most quickly ? A concrete case will 

 answer this question for thousands of similar problems. 



A botany class in a city was beginning the study of fungi, and in 

 addition to the elementary book work each member was assigned an 

 interesting fungus to work up and report upon. One of the boys, instead 

 of the fungus assigned him, asked permission to take the black knot. 

 The teacher was wise and honest enough to tell him that she knew 

 nothing about it, but would be glad if he would learn all he could and 

 give them all the benefit. He went to the library with a pack of postal 

 cards and, going through the recent numbers of the Experiment Station 

 Record, took down on the cards references to all likely articles on the 

 black knot, addressed them, and within a week he had everything that 

 everybody knew about the black knot. 



The boy then went to work out doors, hunted through the woods, and 

 collected the fungus on native wild plums and cherries, and he made a 

 survey of the city in order to form an intelligent estimate of the damage 

 caused to cultivated fruits. He mounted a typical series of specimens 

 in a glass case, all neatly labeled. He studied the fungus with the 

 microscope and made careful drawings of all the important stages in its 

 growth and reproduction. He drew colored wall charts from his pictures, 

 supplemented by those in the books, and finally presented his results 

 on the life history, distribution, and treatment of the black knot in a 

 carefully prepared lecture which occupied an entire period of the class. 

 One of his classmates happened to be a reporter on a local daily, and 

 she presented the subject to the public in a well-written article of about 

 two columns, and there followed such a cleaning up of black knot as 

 that city had not seen in at least fourteen years. 



" What do you think about that work you did in school on the black 

 knot ? " the boy was asked some years later. He replied, " It exactly 

 fitted my bent, and on that account I think I got more real good out of 

 it than from any other one thing in my high-school course." Better 

 than all, this wholesome little try at real study quite probably helped 

 him to decide what he wanted to do for the rest of his life. 



