PREFACE 



THERE are already so many text-books on botany that the 

 author has long hesitated to present another to the educational 

 public. The study of botany has developed very rapidly in the 

 past quarter of a century and as a result we have a great variety 

 of text-books representing an almost equally great variety of 

 methods of presenting the subject. Yet, we meet with a con- 

 tinuous series of complaints against the poorly adapted sec- 

 ondary text-books for teaching in secondary schools, technical 

 schools and colleges. The teacher in the secondary school says 

 that text-books are written by college professors who do not 

 understand the problems involved in secondary education ^ the 

 teacher in the technical school complains because the students 

 from the secondary schools cannot correlate the botany with 

 related subjects; the college professors complain because of the 

 mechanical methods used in the secondary schools which dis- 

 courage rather than encourage further study of the subject by 

 those who enter college. 



Having served for a time as a high-school teacher, the author 

 has some realization of the difficulties of the secondary schools. 

 As a college professor he has some appreciation of the keen dis- 

 appointment felt by those who conduct the Freshman entrance 

 examinations, and who try to teach botany to the college students 

 that come to college with ideas of botany obtained from their 

 training in the secondary schools. By experience, he has learned 

 that the results of the entrance examinations are fully as un- 

 satisfactory when the questions are prepared by the high-school 

 teachers as when prepared by himself. 



The placing of the responsibility for this condition is a 



