100 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IX. No. 212.. 



men; to obtain better material for the mak- 

 ing of teachers; to educate them thoroughly 

 ia the spirit and matter of some one 

 subject or limited group of subjects, and to 

 leave them free to develop their own meth- 

 ods, judging them only by their results. 

 This is what the universities have done with 

 such signal success, what the colleges are 

 now doing and what the schools must do if 

 they are to advance. It is nob methods 

 that teach, but men and women. The second 

 is toward the establishment of thorough and 

 continuous courses in Nature Study through 

 all gi-ades from the kindergarten to the 

 high school. There are two reasons for 

 this from our present point of view. Tlius 

 only can students acquire a knowledge of 

 the more obvious facts and phenomena of 

 Animal and Plant life. Physical Geography, 

 Physics and Chemistry so valuable as a 

 basis for the systematic study of some one 

 of the sciences in the high school. But, 

 far more important than this is the use of 

 Nature Study to preserve the natural in- 

 ductive facilities of children unimpaired 

 through school life, not to speak of improv- 

 ing these facuties tlirough training. No 

 fact about our later and better courses of 

 elementary botanical study is more striking 

 than the unanimity with which they begin 

 with exercises adapted to train observation, 

 comparison, etc. — in a word, induction. 

 Now, these are powers that children possess 

 naturally, the most universal of human 

 faculties, those by which new knowledge is 

 won; those by which self-made men succeed; 

 those which surely above everj'thing educa- 

 tion ought to cherish and develop. But, as 

 a matter of fact, these faculties somewhere 

 between the primary and high school are 

 so eiiectually throttled out of nine-tenths of 

 our students that the first need of the high- 

 school or college teacher is to redevelop 

 them. This suppression is, of course, the 

 result of excessive text-book and deductive 

 work, which always tends to make students 



distrustful of their own powers and leads 

 them to regard as the only real sources of 

 knowledge the thoughts of others properly 

 recorded in printed books. Thorough and 

 properly taught Nature Study is, in my opin- 

 ion, the first need in all education to-day. 



Third of the tendencies I have mentioned 

 is this : The movement among the colleges 

 to require, or at least accept, some one thor- 

 oughly-taught science for entrance, amongst 

 which botany is always included. This will 

 compel preparatory schools to improve their 

 teachiug, for the science offered must be 

 'enough in quantity and quality to allow stu- 

 dents to omit the elementary course in the 

 college and enter upon second courses. More- 

 over, this movement will allow college teach- 

 ers to exert more influence than ever upon 

 school teaching, for, controlling admission, 

 they can state which topics are to be stud- 

 ied and what general methods are to be 

 followed. A great part of the value to 

 botanical teaching of this movement will, 

 however, be lost, unless, in the very near 

 future, the colleges, through their proper 

 representatives, agree upon approximately- 

 equivalent requirements, so that the pre- 

 paratory schools may not be distracted and 

 weakened by widely-differing demands. 



Though botanists are thus eagerly striv- 

 ing to promote the interests of their science, 

 it is not their desire unduly to magnify its 

 importance, but only to give it its proper 

 place in education and among the sciences. 

 Their aim, I believe, may be thus expressed: 

 Let education advance; let science ad- 

 vance ; let botany advance. 



W. F. Ganong. 



Smith College, Northampton, Mass. 



ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING OF TEE GEO- 

 LOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA, DECEM- 

 BER SSTH, '29TH AND SOril, NEW YORK. 



I. 

 The Geological Society of America com- 

 pleted the first year of its second decade with 



