VI PREFACE 



most worth which, touches the pupil's daily life at the most 

 points, and therefore best enables him to understand his own 

 environment. On the other hand, the author has no sympathy 

 with those who decry the use of apparatus in botany teaching 

 in secondary schools and who would confine the work of their 

 pupils mainly within the limits of what can be seen with the 

 unaided eye. If the compound microscope plainly reveals 

 things shown only imperfectly by a magnifier and not seen at 

 all with the naked eye, use the microscope ! If iodine 

 solution or other easily prepared reagents make evident the 

 existence of structures or substances not to be detected with- 

 out them, then use the reagents ! No one thinks of deny- 

 ing a boy the use of a spyglass or a compass for his tr.amps 

 afield or his outings in a boat because he has not studied 

 physics. No one would refuse to let an intelligent boy or 

 girl use a camera because the would-be photographer had not 

 mastered the chemical reactions that follow upon the expo- 

 sure of a sensitized plate. Yet it is equally illogical to defer 

 some of the most fascinating portions of botanical study until 

 the college course, to which most never attain. When the 

 university professor tells the teacher that he ought not to 

 employ the ordinary appliances of elementary biological inves- 

 tigation in the school laboratory because the pupils cannot 

 intelligently use them, the teacher is forced to reply that the 

 professor himself cannot intelligently discuss a subject of 

 which he has no personal knowledge. The pupils are deeply 

 interested; they prove by their drawings and their recita- 

 tions that they have seen a good way into plant structures 

 and plant functions ; then why not let them study botany 

 in earnest ? 



J. Y. B. 



CAMBRIDGE, January, 1901. 



