A LABORATORY GUIDE FOR 

 GENERAL BOTANY 



TO THE STUDENT 



THE NATURE AND PURPOSE OF LABORATORY WORK 



A . The Laboratory: 



1. The word laboratory is derived from the Latin word 

 labor, meaning work. A laboratory, therefore, is a 

 workshop. The essential part of laboratory work, 

 however, is not the manual but the intellectual. 

 Handling specimens, manipulating apparatus, tak- 

 ing notes, and making drawings, all are essential, 

 but are wholly secondary to thinking. A laboratory 

 exercise should be regarded always and primarily as 

 a thought exercise. Everything else that you do 

 with a specimen should be secondary to thinking 

 about it, and done only to aid thought. 



2. The aim of laboratory work is to obtain facts at first 

 hand. Reading books on plants is only studying 

 about botany. To study botany one must have the 

 actual plants before him. It was Louis Agassiz 

 who said, " If you study nature in books when you 

 go out of doors you cannot find her." The posses- 

 sion of this first-hand knowledge makes the reading 

 of botanical books not only more easy, but vastly 

 more interesting. You can take more away from 

 the text because you bring more to it. 



