EDITORIAL. 
IN LOOKING somewhat carefully into the methods of botanical in- 
struction prevalent in our colleges it seems to us that there is a dan- 
gerous tendency that demands consideration. We do not refer to 
those colleges in which botany receives but little attention, but to 
those in which there is an attempt to develop it in a full and modern 
way. In the recoil from the old time methods, the college has gone 
to the other extreme and seeks to become a place of research, a sort 
of undergraduate university. The teachers who are fit to teach have 
either just come from great botanical centers where research is in the 
very air, or they are intensely occupied with their own investigations. 
The consequence is that raw young men and women, after a year OF 
two of the study of “types,” are assigned original problems, and their 
uncertain results, with more or less revision on the part of the instruc 
tor, are published in some periodical or bulletin. These callow pro 
ductions have come upon us in swarms and they are richer in annoy- 
ance than in information. We do not blame the young authors in the 
least, but we do blame instructors for encouraging poorly prepared 
students to undertake original investigation. The science of botany 
is an enormous thing, with a long history and a rapidly increasing vol- 
e, and a year or two of preparation cannot fit any one to conduct 
a creditable research in any part of it. The different departments of 
it are so interdependent that it needs long training to bring the pet 
spective and the grasp that make any independent investigation prof- 
itable. To interpret, and to fit results upon the great body of accumu 
lated knowledge is not within the capacity of an undergraduate. We 
are perfectly aware that many ambitious students desire a “problem’ 
almost as soon as they enter the laboratory, but it should no more be 
granted to them than solid food to a sucking babe. We are pleading 
for a longer devotion to the elements of botany in all their wide rang% 
a patient preparation, year after year, of a suitable background up0? 
which individual work may presently be projected, an abolition of big! 
dependent undergraduate investigation. If the instructor be carryi0& 
on investigations in which students may be of service it is profitable 
and inspiring to allow such service, but this is training, not original 
research. Those students are fortunate who are held back from pre 
cocious research and publication, and those are to be pitied who are 
spurred into doing that for which they are in no way prepared. 
[82] 
