CURRENT LITERATURE. 
BOOK REVIEWS. 
German instruction in botany. 
Ir Is INTERESTING to compare the latest German book on botanical instruction 
with our own. Dr. Krenttz-Gerorr,' professor of botany in the Agricultural 
_ school at Weilburg, has briefly described the present condition of botanical teach- 
ing in Prussia; has discussed at some length the principles, pedagogical and 
botanical, on which a proper course should be laid out; and has devoted the 
greater part of his book to the outlining of such a course as meets his views. 
The first section of the book may be passed over with the remark that ‘‘nature 
study” finds a place in the primary schools, but it is nature study directed to a 
somewhat definite end; for pupils are taught something of the structure and life 
of plants, and are even “made familiar with the use of the lens and microscope.” 
This study is extended in the intermediate grades, and in the Gymnasien and 
Realschulen becomes a two to six-hour course weekly in natural sciences, con- 
tinued for six years. Of this botany has a reasonable share. In the Landwirth- 
Schajischulen (not technical schools) zoology and botany have four hours weekly 
for two years and two hours a week for a third, and applied biology has the same 
time. 
In the second section the author with rather elaborate pedagogic philosophy 
develops his theory that the normal course of instruction in botany should 
planned broadly on the lines that its historical development has followed. In 
the practical application of this theory he divides the course into four parts: 
(1) preparatory, (2) morphology and taxonomy, (3) physiology and anatomy, 
(4) cryptogams and reproduction. 
the preparatory course, no formal morphological distinctions are made, 
but the endeavor is to awaken interest, and to train in observation and induction 
by using the common and useful flowering plants. Incidentally, of course, @ 
deal of morphology is learned. 
The second course, by using plants of the larger orders and families, and by 
comparisons, is for training in external morphology, and at the same time to give 
fundamental conceptions of taxonomy. The mere determination of names IS 
made wholly incidental, and the memorizing of terms and definitions is rightly 
condemned. In both these courses actual examples of lessons (stenographically 
Teported) are given. 
The third course is given in extenso in the form of questions and a statement 
* Krenttz-Gertorr, F., Methodik des botanischen Unterrichts. 8vo. PP: viii+ 
290. figs. 114. Berlin: Otto Salle. 1904. M6. so. 
230 [SEPTEMBER 
