1896 | BOTANICAL OPPORTUNITY 197 
it still occupies the place of a fixed study of a few terms’ dura- 
tion in a prescribed undergraduate course, it is evident that the 
necessary equipment of a department is expressible in the 
simplest terms: for each course, that which is needed to 
exemplify by the most direct object lessons the subject selected, 
and enough general and collateral material and literature to 
complement the work. But the case is somewhat different 
when, as is now frequent, a considerable option is allowed the 
student in the courses taken for the baccalaureate degree. Here 
the temptation exists to secure equipment for the broadest pos- 
sible series of electives, and it is too often yielded to for the best 
interests of the institution. However liberal one may be in the 
matter of electives, it is evident, in most instances, that the 
student cannot afford to devote more than about one-half of his 
undergraduate time to a single study like botany, and in this time 
he can cover only a definite amount of ground. While there isa 
certain seductiveness in the perusal of long lists of electives ina 
college catalogue, the serious contemplation of them shows that 
few, if any, students can hope to take all of the courses of sucha 
list, and as, for the most part, they are garnished out in an 
attractive form, there is likely to be embarrassment in the wealth 
of subjects, so that, if left to himself, the student is very likely 
to select a series of disconnected but pleasing fragments, rather 
than the proper links in an educational chain. Experience 
shows the wisdom of limiting the list of electives to those that 
there is reasonable probability that the student can take, and of 
making the list a consistent whole, fairly opening up the entire 
field of botany in such manner as to pave the way for a piece of 
advanced thesis work at the end, and for specialization after 
Staduation. So far as undergraduate instruction is concerned, 
where, as is usually the case, funds are limited, it is here desira- 
ble, as in the other instance, to limit the scope of the depart- 
oe equipment quite closely to the requirements of the courses 
Offered. As the senior thesis work is almost certain to be a 
further study of some one of the subjects already elected, the 
Provision for it, in nearly every instance, is easily and quickly 
