K.— BOTANY 231 



certain aspects of the universe such as heredity, development and the 

 reaction of the organism to the environment which must be studied in 

 other respects than merely the chemical and physical states with which 

 they are associated, and hence biological knowledge is as fundamental to 

 our understanding of the world around us as either physics or chemistry. 



One great merit of botanical study from the standpoint of general 

 education is that, if properly taught, it provides perhaps the best medium 

 for training in accurate observation. 



Observation consists essentially of two separate processes, namely, 

 seeing the object or phenomenon and the apprehension of what is seen. 

 The visual perception of the good and bad observer may be alike adequate, 

 but it is in the degree of their apprehension that they differ. To train 

 such powers it is essential to check the accuracy of appreciation either 

 by means of verbal description or graphic representation. The graphic 

 method is clearly more suited to the adolescent mind whose limited 

 vocabulary and limited feeling and understanding of the nuances of mean- 

 ing of words unduly restricts his verbal precision. Drawing, if regarded 

 strictly as a statement of observed facts, offers the best means of such 

 training, and botanical material, because of its well-defined organisation, 

 is peculiarly suited for this purpose. 



But, from the cultural standpoint, plant life and all that it implies 

 may be regarded as the foundation of a vast extent of human activity and 

 the basis of a large and essential part of every human environment. 

 Because neither we nor the animals could persist without plant life it 

 follows that much of the present distribution of these organisms over the 

 face of the earth can only be understood in terms of the plant life either 

 of the present or the past. Even man's industrial activities have been 

 largely localised and in part determined by the geographical distribution 

 of vegetation whether it be that of the forests, of perhaps 280 million 

 years ago, which gave origin to our coal deposits, or the vast extent of 

 grasslands that have determined the location of pastoral communities. 



It is no exaggeration to say that an adequate appreciation of geography, 

 unless merely descriptive, is not possible without an adequate background 

 of botanical equipment. Yet teachers of geography, let alone students, 

 are too often ill-equipped in this prerequisite. 



A realisation of the widespread demands made upon plant products 

 would probably astonish many of those who, like Mr. Babitt, find in the 

 mechanistic devices of the age their chief delight. Yet it has been recently 

 estimated that a thousand Ford motor cars utilise in their manufacture 

 the entire plant yield of over six hundred acres, and this quite apart from 

 the indirect demands for grazing necessary to furnish the materials of 

 animal origin. Despite the vast areas of the earth's surface devoted to the 

 growth of foodstuffs, of textile fibres, of timber, rubber, tea, tobacco and 

 innumerable other plant products, the plant remains perhaps the least 

 known and appreciated of all man's servants by those who lay claim to 

 any cognisance of their environment. 



Even the town dweller can scarcely fail to recognise the indirect con- 

 tacts of his everyday existence with the activities of agriculture, forestry 

 and horticulture, and, if education is to be interpreted as a means 

 of enabling the individual to have an intelligent appreciation of and 



