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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIX. No. 1002 



botany consisted in a study of Gray's Man- 

 ual, and the second-year botany of more 

 Gray's Manual. Botanists have traveled 

 a long way from the ideal of Linnseus, who 

 declared that the only worthy task of a 

 botanist is to know all the species of the 

 vegetable kingdom by name. Thus prog- 

 ress has been the word in biological teach- 

 ing, but, as has been the case in education 

 in general, fads have crept in and have 

 usurped the place rightly belonging to less 

 spectacular but more fundamental aspects 

 of the subject. One of the most pernicious 

 of these in the recent history of botanical 

 instruction is indicated by the flood of ele- 

 mentary text-books on so-called practical 

 botany, in which there is very little botany, 

 but a good deal of elementary forestry, 

 horticulture, plant breeding and the like. 

 Since all of us specialists are faddists in 

 a more or less worthy sense, we run the risk 

 of introducing our favorite topics into our 

 courses, and even giving them undue prom- 

 inence. Moreover, we may experiment on 

 the matter and method of our courses, while 

 quite alive to the danger of riding our 

 hobby in the lecture room. It will prob- 

 ably be agreed that the course which is 

 most important from the standpoint of 

 pedagogic experiment is the introductory 

 course — general biology or general botany 

 or general zoology, as the case may be. In 

 fact it may be said that the crux of the 

 question lies here, for if it can be decided 

 what is to be the content of this general 

 course the more advanced courses will 

 readily fall into line; the character of the 

 latter will be largely determined by the 

 special needs in the particular institution; 

 for instance, the course in plant pathology 

 which would be required in a college of 

 agriculture would naturally be represented 

 in a less technical institution by an ad- 

 vanced course in fungi. Further, the gen- 

 eral course includes all the biology which 



many students get, hence this course should 

 be organized with particular care. 



Coming then to the consideration of the 

 general course, a study of curricula shows 

 that there is a marked lack of unanimity 

 among biologists as to what should be its 

 content, and this fact causes no surprise, 

 but is entirely reasonable in view of the 

 diversity in needs of students. The lack 

 of uniformity which courses exhibit arises 

 from selection of material, for in a field so 

 vast one can scarcely hope to treat the 

 whole, even in a general way. If such 

 should be attempted, we encounter at least 

 two dangers: first, a topic must be treated 

 so briefly that students fail to comprehend 

 it. Any one who has tried to make Men- 

 del's law clear to a freshman class will ap- 

 preciate this statement. Second, when the 

 student begins more advanced courses he 

 loses the advantage of entering distinctly 

 novel fields — we have already sucked the 

 juice out of the orange, so to speak. But if 

 the whole subject may not be covei'ed, it 

 becomes necessary to select, and continued 

 selection through a period of time has re- 

 sulted in the survival of the fittest, that is, 

 the assembling of a number of topics which 

 may be regarded as fundamental. These 

 topics in a well-ordered course represent 

 principles, for the plants or animals stud- 

 ied are not introduced for their own sake, 

 but in order to illustrate one or more prin- 

 ciples which it is desired to teach. Thus a 

 liverwort may not be of great importance 

 on its own account, but it illustrates alter- 

 nation of generations and the probable ori- 

 gin of a land flora, and hence properly 

 finds a place in a general course. 



When a new field of discovery supplies 

 facts which make a claim for introduction 

 into the general course, they must justify 

 the claim, lest we crowd out the tried and 

 proved to make room for the new. The 

 significance and value of a new fact may 



