494 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ DECEMBER 
been forced upon us, against our will and preaching and former best 
judgment, that botanists must recommend something else. 
WE BELIEVE that the botanical field for the secondary school is that 
of ecology, and that modern morphology should be left to the colleges 
and universities, where maturity, and time, and apparatus, and teachers, 
are all adequate. The preparatory student needs to come in contact 
with plants in their general relations, to learn to look upon them 
intelligently in the mass, before he begins the continuous study of 
minute structures. The introduction of pure morphology has removed 
him from contact with plants as living things inhabiting the world, a 
contact which the old “analysis” gave in a sentimental rather than 
scientific way. He can be introduced to plants as a whole, not to 
“ flowers” merely ; he can study their habits of life, their adaptations 
to various conditions; the societies which they form. Certain intimate 
structures must be studied to make relations and adaptations si gnificant, 
and so the microscope cannot be banished, but it can be made an 
incidental piece of apparatus, rather than the necessary aperture 
through which every glimpse of botany must be obtained. With 
ecology as the main purpose, and a certain amount of physiology and 
morphology as necessary adjuncts, such an impression of plants in 
general can be made that the more formal university courses will be 
much more significant than they are. In our judgment such work in 
the secondary schools not only will show better results in the schools 
themselves, but will send better prepared students into our university 
laboratories. 
IT Is A CAUSE for congratulation that American botanists seem to 
be much interested in the tropical laboratory suggested in an editorial 
of the November GazettE. An expression of interest, 
The American however, to be effective, must be followed by a definite 
Tropical plan vigorously prosecuted. In the present number we 
Laboratory _ publish an open letter from Professor MacDougal, whose 
research work is peculiarly in need of development in 8 
tropical environment. As Mr. MacDougal has already planned a visit 
to the American tropics, the GazETTE proposes that he be appointed 
chairman of a committee on inspection, associating with himself such 
other botanists as he may be able to secure. It should be the work of 
such a committee not merely to examine suitable locations, but also to 
