CURRENT LITERATURE. 
BOOK: REVIEWS. 
Elementary text-books. 
PROFESSOR Atkinson’s Lessons in Botany* is announced as an abbreviated 
and simplified edition of the author’s Elementary Botany, reviewed in this 
journal for December 1898. The design is to meet the requirements of 
those secondary schools, still far too numerous, in which not more than a half 
year is given to botany. The contents are clearly separated into three uses: 
“exercises for the pupils, demonstrations by the teacher, and descriptive 
matter for reading and reference.” The book is more than a mere conden- 
sation of the larger one, for a large part of the matter has been rewritten, 
new illustrations have been introduced, and the whole presentation has a 
different constituency in view. As was said in the former review, Professor 
Atkinson is a very successful teacher and has had much experience with the 
schools, so that this book, as well as the other, should prove of large service 
in introducing into the secondary schools the truer views of botany which 
they so much need.—J. M. C. 
AN author who writes from a university standpoint for the secondary 
schools has a difficult task. His own breadth of knowledge, and his relation 
to his fellow-workers invite to a broad, comprehensive, and up-to-date treat- 
ment of his subject. The secondary school, on the other hand, insists upo? 
a work that is elementary in fact as well as in name. 
The Outlines of Plant Life? is another expression of the desire on the part 
of teachers of botany to present the subject to the secondary schools in such 
a manner as to indicate in some measure the present condition of the acienre 
and at the same time to give a usable book. Its appearance as an abridge- 
ment of Plant Life is a recognition of the fact that the present need of the 
secondary schools is a simpler and less comprehensive treatment of the mer 
ject. Almost a third of the original text, with the accompanying illustrations, 
has been cut out; some of the introductory portions have been rewritten, 
summaries added to each chapter, and appendix I (Directions for laboratory 
study) has been incorporated with the text as exercises. These changes mt 
tainly render the book much better adapted to the work of the secondary 
* ATKINSON, GEORGE FRANCIS.—Lessons in botany. Small 8vo. pp: xv + 305; 
Sigs. 277. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1900. 
* BARNES, CHARLES REID. Outlines of plant life. Small 8vo. ppP- vit 
Jfigs.250. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1900. 
358 
308, 
[way 
