October 23, 1890] 



NATURE 



623 



So also with other structures, the training is designed to 

 familiarize the student with the best examples of each structure, 

 and although he must acquire a sufficient insight into the 

 relations of these structures and parts to be able to understand 

 how they work together, and how the functions of some depend 

 on those of others, still his aim is not to follow out their 

 development and relations in space and time, but to deal with 

 their behaviour now and in the mature plant. 



Up to a certain point both morphologist and physiologist 

 must work along the same lines : they then diverge, and it is at 

 this period that the more extensive use of books must come in ; 

 for the student should now have so real a knowledge of the things 

 discussed, that illustrations and information are clfarto his under- 

 standing. Theintendingphysiologistmust puthimselfin possession 

 of sufficient histology and anatomy to be able to follow the work 

 of the specialists in this domain, and to see what bearings their 

 discoveries have on his branch of investigation : no less must 

 the morphologist follow the special literature, but with his own 

 very different end in view. Both will, of course, have their 

 special literature also. 



However, it is obvious that we have now reached a point where 

 no very rigid rules can be laid down, since the advanced academical 

 student is in a position to strike out his own lines, and if he does 

 not display some originality now in his methods, aims, &c., the 

 presumption is that no amount of training on the part of teachers 

 will lead to it. Nay, more than this, it is highly desirable that 

 he should be left alone, for the dormant originality is as likely 

 as not being kept down by the pressure of prescribed studies. 



(3) In illustration of what is required in special branches of 

 botanical study, I cannot do better than take the case of 

 the properly-educated forest-student : go where you may, you 

 are not likely to meet with a more representative "practical 

 man " than the trained forest-officer, and consequently his case 

 is peculiarly well adapted for my present purpose. 



No one will be so rash as to ar^ue that the botanical training 

 of a forester should err in subordinating a knowledge of trees 

 and wood, the phenomena of germination and nutrition, of 

 growth, &c., to transcendental hypotheses and discussions on 

 the nature of morphological conceptions or on abstruse questions 

 as to the significance of movements of irritability, or the ulti- 

 mate mechanism of reproduction and the molecular forces con- 

 cerned in heredity : on the contrary, most people will concur in 

 a^jreeing with me that the teaching of forest botany should be 

 directed to laying down' in the student's mind a good foundation 

 of facts of observation, and showing him how to acquire others, 

 and, further, to training his mind to reason accurately from these 

 facts, so that he may apply his reasoning to the practice which 

 is to be his life's pursuit. 



On the other hand, there is a danger which very few people 

 escape when talking on this subject, and that is the danger of 

 supposing that the attention of the forest- student should be con- 

 fined simjily to acquiring and remembering aphoristic statements 

 of facts, and that his accomplishments in this connection measure 

 the fitness of his training. In other words, many so-called 

 " practical men " argue that it is the qiiantity of information 

 which tests the student's progress, and neglect the truth that 

 progress is much more adequately represented by the quality of 

 the instruction. 



Let us put the case in another way. It is granted that the 

 forest-student must be made acquainted with certain facts of 

 observation, and that he must be informed of important con- 

 clusions derived after comparing these facts : it is also granted 

 that his time for training is limited — there is no getting over 

 this, and we need not discuss what the limits are, or why they 

 are so. Now, the problem is, Shall the student devote the whole 

 of this period of training to simply acquiring as many of these 

 facts as possible, the conclusions being limited to those directly 

 applied in the forest ; or shall more attention be devoted to the 

 methods of acquiring these facts and of drawing the conclusions 

 from them, and the facts themselves be utilized rather in so far 

 as they are necessary for the training, than as the ultimate aim 

 of that training ? 



The answer to this question is of the highest importance. If 

 we decide that the chief object of the forest-student's training is 

 to make himself acquainted with the facts themselves, then his 

 whole time will have to be given to such matters as learning 

 the names of plants ; the peculiarities of the roots, bark, wood, 

 buds, leaves, &c., of the various trees ; the empirical facts as to 

 the relative amount of light, moisture, &c., and the degrees of 

 temperature that each species will bear, and so on ; the ascer- 



NO. 1095, "^'OL. 42] 



tained growth in height of each species, and the annual increment 

 it exhibits, and so on. It is obvious that, if the student worked 

 continuously for his two years or so of probation, he could 

 make himself or be made acquainted with an enormous mass of 

 such information, but it is equally obvious that he could not 

 nearly exhaust the catalogue of facts. The latter truth becomes 

 still more apparent, however, when we remember that he has to 

 devote his attention to several other branches of study in addition 

 to botany. 



But is this the right decision to come to in face of the problem 

 I put before you ? I say no ! emphatically no ! On the con- 

 trary, it should be recognized at once that the forest-student 

 cannot acquire more than a small proportion of the facts of his 

 subject while he is in training, and even if he could they would 

 be of no use to him in this shape. The selection being limited, 

 then, it should be the aim of the teacher to direct the student's 

 attention to a selected number of facts (you need have no fear 

 that the list will be a short one) such as throw light upon mat- 

 ters that the student will not be likely to explain for himself, 

 unless he is directed. The facts of the forest will be before him 

 always ; why, then, occupy the valuable time of training with 

 an incomplete catalogue of them ? There are thousands of other 

 points, however, that he will never know anything about if he 

 does not learn how to observe and infer them while he has the 

 chance with a competent teacher by his side. 



Let me give an example. The details of the different modes 

 of germination of the various seeds of trees are numerous, but 

 they can be collated under a few heads. Some seeds, like those 

 of the beech, raise their cotyledons above the surface of the soil, 

 and they become green and expand ; others, like those of the 

 oak, remain underground, and devoid of chlorophyll, and do not 

 expand. As sown, however, the beech-mast and acorns are not 

 seeds, but fruits, for each is enclosed in its pericarp. Both agree 

 in having two cotyledons to the embryo ; and although the beech 

 seed contains a thin remnant of endosperm, both are usually 

 termed exalbuminous ; moreover, the cotyledons have their cells 

 crowded with food-materials consisting chiefly of starch-grains 

 and oil. 



The seed of a date-palm, on the other hand, is provided with 

 large stores of food-material in the form of cellulose, as thicken- 

 ing materials to the cell-walls of the endosperm, and it contains 

 a relatively minute embryo, furnished with one knob-like cotyledon 

 only ; while the seed of a Scotch pine has a large, fatty endo- 

 sperm, and a poly-cotyledonous embryo in its axis. The details 

 of germination of the palm and the pine differ, and both in dif- 

 ferent ways from those of the beech and the oak. 



Now it is unquestionable that the forester ought to understand 

 what are called the phenomena of germination ; but the inquiry 

 arises, Do we mean by this that he ought to learn the details of 

 the germination of these and a large number of other seeds, or do 

 we mean that he should be made acquainted with what research 

 has shown to be common to all seeds, and then with the chief 

 classes of difference in detail ? In other words, is he to be taught 

 generalizations, and shown by a few well-selected examples how 

 they have been and are being arrived at ; or is he to be burdened 

 merely with the details themselves, as stated in the words of and 

 on the authority of others ? Undoubtedly the former is the true 

 method : the latter is simply empiricism. 



Let none fear that the student who is thus taught will learn too 

 few facts — the fetish of the " practical man." 



In the first place he cannot proceed without sufficient informa- 

 tion to enable him to understand the physiological value of such 

 bodies as starch, cellulose, oils, and proteids ; and, without 

 troubling him with the refinements of micro-chemical methods, 

 he will at least have to be made acquainted with the better- 

 known changes which these bodies undergo in the presence of 

 water and oxygen, and with the metamorphoses comprised under 

 metabolism ; and here his botanical knowledge comes into 

 intimate relations with his information on elementary chemistry. 



But, further than this, how is he to proceed to an under- 

 standing of even the outlines of the physiology of germination 

 until he knows the leading phenomena of fermentation on the 

 one hand, and of respiration on the other ? 



I will not enlarge upon this part of my subject however, but 

 simply assure those unacquainted with the full bearings of these 

 remarks, that there is no paucity of facts in this connection, and 

 that, simply to make himself acquainted with the more salient 

 ones, the student has to devote many hours of careful study in 

 the laboratory. 



But he will not understand the process of germination unless 



