VALUE OF BOTANICAL TKAINING 399 



diagnosis. Some of our greatest lawyers and medical men 

 have pronounced Systematic Nat. Hist, as an admirable 

 training for medical and legal enquiry, in sifting evidence and 

 disease, etc. etc. Also Syst. Bot., i.e. the Nat. Ord., should 

 be the prominent goal for the beginner, as they are the ex- 

 pressions of the Morphology, Structure and all other attributes 

 of plants. Classifying plants is further an exercise of the 

 reasoning faculties, always bringing memory and judgment 

 into play, and we all know * Memoria augetur excolendo.' 

 .An Introductory Chapter of this kind would invite many 

 thoughtful pupils to think for themselves, and give a dignity 

 to the study that teachers would appreciate. These hints, 

 if worth anything, may help you to a new feature for a reprint. 

 Another thing must be impressed at the present day, 

 that Botany is a knowledge of plants that Physiology, 

 Anatomy, etc. etc., are one thing, but Physiological, etc., 

 Botany quite another. Also that in examining in Botany the 

 teacher should never go beyond what the pupil has a practical 

 knowledge of. Botany is a Science of Observation, and the 

 present plan of examining pupils in what they have coached 

 or crammed up is ruinous. They are disgusted at finding that 

 after taking an honor in Botany, when they want to progress 

 in the Science, they have to go back to the Elements. If 

 teachers understood this, they would themselves see the 

 necessity of learning. Tell them that a child with a butter- 

 cup could make out whether Torrey 1 or Gray knew most of 

 Botany, but that neither Torrey nor Gray could tell which 

 of two children knew most of plants by examining them 

 on what they had only read. Beading without observation 

 on the Sciences of Observation is most destructive. The 

 difference between the modes of teaching required for the 

 Natural Sciences and Moral Sciences, etc., has never yet been 

 properly put, and until it is, all hopes of getting the Nat. 

 Sciences introduced into Elementary Education are illusory. 



Allowing for the difference of aim between a handbook and 

 a course of lectures, there is a close parallel between these 



1 John Torrey, M.D., LL.D. (1796-1873), was born in New York, and became a 

 pupil of Amos Eaton, pioneer of Natural Science. In 1818 he took his medical 

 degree and practised as a doctor, but devoted his leisure to botany and mineralogy. 

 He published a Flora of the North and Middle Sections of the U.S.A., 1824, and 

 a Flora of New York, completed 1843, &c., &c. Professor of Botany in the 

 Medical College, and at Princeton College, and was also State Botanist. 



