420 HePorT— 1003. 



division of the ilucleus, as it is not uncommon to find, long before the firSt 

 division is cdmplete, several new cell walls in various stages of develop- 

 ment in dthfel* parts of the cell. 



'In thieit" cell structure the Cyanophycere do not exhibit any very 

 close connection with other plants, except possibly the Bacteria ; and 

 even here the affinity does not seem to be a very close one. During 

 the last twelve years I have examined a large number of- species of 

 the Cyanophycese, and it seems to me that we may regard them as 

 the survivors of an ancient group of chlorophyll-containing plants itl 

 which the cell structure presents a more rudimentary condition than in 

 any other group of green plants known to us at the present day, and that, 

 in consequence, their exact relationship to existing plants cannot be 

 traced.' 



The Teaching of Botany in Schools. — Report of the Committee, consist- 

 ing of Professor L, 0. Miall (Chairman), Mr. Harold Wager 

 (Secretar;/), Professor J. R. GreeN, Mr. A. C. Seavard, Professors 

 H. Marshall Ward, J. B. Farmer, and T. Johnson, Miss LiLiAff 

 Clarke, and Dr. C. W. Klmmins. 



The Conditions of Frofitahle Stndij. — Ih order to make the most of scien- 

 tific lessons in school the teacher should have a just appfeciation of the 

 1-elative importance of facts ; he should encourage his pUpils to work 

 for themselves, and he should adapt his teaching to their present wants. 

 All these requirements have often been disregarded by teachers of 

 Botany. 



The Relative Importance of Facts. — In all ages teachers have been 

 blamed for defective appreciation of the relative importance of facts. The 

 term pedant, once a mere synonym of teacher^ has come to mean a man 

 who makes a display of vain learning, while he neglects what is practically 

 Useful. Perhaps the teachers of Botany have sinned in this way as con- 

 spicuously as teachers of any other sort. Old exercise books survive to 

 show that in one generation instructors were content with getting the 

 classes and orders of the Linnean system committed to memory. In a 

 later generation they chiefly aimed at the description of a plant in correct 

 technical language. Some manuals of Botany of old date are little more 

 than glossaries of terms. Students of Botany have been encouraged to 

 spend most of their time upon the characters by which the British flower- 

 ing plants are distinguished from one another, the ultimate purpose being 

 apparently a more perfect knowledge of their distribution within these 

 islands. The scientific product of local lists has by no means justified 

 the time and labour bestowed upon them, and their educational effect has 

 been depressing instead of stimulating. Meanwhile the nutrition of green 

 plants, a subject of the highest scientific interest and the very foundation 

 of agriculture, was during many years almost ignored in schools and 

 colleges. So late as 1870 it was very slightly treated in teaching courses, 

 and no Englishman liad made any important experiments upon it for a 

 hundred years. It is only of late years that we have become aware that 

 we must study our plants alive and experimentally. Scientific curiosity 

 would surely be better occupied in discovering how plants get their food, 

 respond to stimuli, adapt their structure to new circumstances, contend 

 with their rivals or enemies, and propagate their race than in learning 



