844 REPORT— 1901. 



lecturing; aim not at tlie highest nor the lowest intellects, but 80 as to keep those 

 about 20 per cent, down, with their minds at full stretch. 



Protest against so-called ' elementary biologj' ' as an introduction to the study 

 of botan}'. It was merely a weak concession to circimistances. 



Elementctry course should be attended by all, even by those who already 

 profess some knowledge of the subject acquired at school, for this course should 

 be a general and methodical foundation for the study on the advanced stage, 

 morphological, anatomical, physiological, and systematic. The length of the 

 course should be not less than fifty lectures and a hundred hours of laboratory 

 work closely connected with the subject-matter of the lectures. Observation with 

 the simple lens and drawing the results should bulk more largely than it does at 

 present in laboratory teaching. Microscopic observation has been overdone. 



Adoanced courses should treat of special branches of the science, and not try to 

 be generally encyclopaedic. Each course should lead the student of that special 

 branch up to the limit of present knowledge, with ample reference to, and present- 

 ment of, current memoirs ; thus the pupil will be introduced to the special litera- 

 ture of the science, and learn how to extend it. Laboratory and herbarium and 

 museum work, ranging over as wide an area of illustration as possible, should 

 accompany each special course. 



Advanced students should be left largely to themselves, and thus learn to think 

 and act independently : the object of the student attending advanced courses 

 should be not so much to acquire information, as to learn scientific method, and 

 how to investigate. Microtomes should be accessories, not the divinities, of the 

 laboratory. 



liesearcJi. — All are not, and cannot be, investigators. Professors should be 

 discreet in encouraging research. At present the results of investigation are given 

 too prominent a place in selection for preferment. Hence the rush to ' investi- 

 gate ' whether fit for it or not. The result is many barren publications, and some 

 disappointed lives. 



liesearch should not be begun too early, nor be pursued to the exclusion of 

 continued general improvement in the science. Professors should have no com- 

 punction in stopping the unfit. 



The presentment of the results of research in good literary form is a first duty 

 of the investigator ; there is too much A'oiding of mere laboratory notes, and too 

 much prolix writing; an abstract should always be given. Advocate the study 

 of classical papers as models. 



In tlie above notes no mention has been made of the general administrative 

 duties of a professor apart from the teaching of botany. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. Notes on Preserving and Prepao'ing Plants for Museum Purposes. 



By H. F. Tagg. 



With the object of rendering the preparations educationally more useful, it has 

 been the practice in preparing specimens for the Museum of the Royal Botanic 

 Garden, Edinburgh, to name the different organs by means of labels and pointers 

 attached to the specimen. 



A preparation of the kind was exhibited in 189G, but the many inquiries made 

 since regarding the preparation of the specimens prompted a general description 

 of the methods employed along with a statement of the results of some experiments 

 which led to the adoption of these methods. 



I. Methods of Preserving. — Noticing first the characters of plant specimen we 

 may wish preserved, the separation of these into characters of colour and characters 

 of form coincides with the separation of the methods of preserving into two groups 

 —preserving by drying and preserving by means of liquid media. Drying the 

 plant has proved the only method satisfactory for the preservation of the colours 

 of plants, but fails commonly when applied to the preservation of the natural form, 



