8 ELEMENTS OF PLANT BIOLOGY 



practical one, conditioned by the fact that the students 

 include some who know nothing of biology and are 

 only beginning to learn elementary chemistry and 

 physics, and by the further fact that the classes are 

 large, varying from 120 to 250 students, and have to 

 be taught on the old-fashioned academic system of 

 an hour's lecture followed by two hours' practical 

 work, a system which has serious educational draw- 

 backs, though also obvious conveniences. 



The problem, then, is to provide, under these 

 conditions, a course of teaching which shall be as 

 interesting as possible and shall serve to introduce 

 the student to the fundamental facts and principles 

 of biology, both as part of his training for life and 

 more particularly as an introduction to the study 

 of medicine, which, as has often been said, is really 

 a specialised branch of applied biology. 



The time is past when we could hope to give the 

 budding medical student a thorough training in 

 elementary botany and zoology, and with the ever 

 increasing complexity of the medical curriculum 

 proper there is constant pressure to shorten and 

 simplify the preparatory parts. It seems to me that 

 biologists should yield to this pressure to a reasonable 

 extent, and frankly ask themselves how far the things 

 that have been traditionally taught really serve as the 

 best introduction to biology for medical students under 

 existing conditions. 



At the same time the provision of a good intro- 

 duction to general biology in the early part of the 

 student's course is certainly of as much importance 

 now as ever it was. If the foundations are not broad 

 enough, the student's outlook will necessarily suffer 

 when he comes to his more specialised work ; and 



