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SCIENCE 



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



borne out by the report of Oxford tutors 

 concerning Rhodes scholars; the tutors 

 readily admit the mental alertness of the 

 American scholars, but uniformly remark 

 upon their inability to settle down to do a 

 long spell of thorough work. 



Again, since we very properly lay more 

 stress on nature than on books, the avail- 

 ability of a new topic for laboratory pur- 

 poses must be considered. It is a matter of 

 common experience that morphological 

 work presents fewer difficulties than any 

 other when unwieldy classes have to be 

 marshalled section after section in over- 

 crowded laboratories. Unless numerous 

 assistants and abundant laboratory and 

 greenhouse space are available, work along 

 physiological, ecological or genetic lines is 

 apt to result in much waste of time and few 

 profitable results, while at the same time 

 the student is missing the opportunity of 

 laying a stable morphological foundation 

 for his later studies. 



Even when the best word has been said 

 in behalf of the newer fields, the preemi- 

 nence of morphology as the sine qua non of 

 instruction remains untouched. Though 

 the educational pendulum may swing far 

 to the right and left, it returns to its stable 

 position, and that position points to mor- 

 phology. One of the dangers which a stu- 

 dent encounters is that of specializing too 

 early, before he has laid a solid foundation. 

 Hence our general course must show a pre- 

 ponderance of that branch which experi- 

 ence has shown to be fundamental. Exam- 

 ples of the fatal consequences of an absence 

 of adequate knowledge of morphology are 

 not hard to find. On the botanical side we 

 need only recall the blunders of the earlier 

 paleobotanists, who framed phylogenies 

 based on external structures only, and in 

 our own day we have the sorry spectacle of 

 experimental morphologists who have a 

 slender grasp of morphology, and of plant 



physiologists who propose theories which 

 are at once seen to be untenable when 

 viewed in the light of the elementary facts 

 of histology. Work in genetics or in plant 

 pathology carried on by those who are not 

 rooted and grounded in morphology is 

 bound to be of the empiric type, too greatly 

 resembling the product of the short courses 

 in agriculture. 



What then shall be the nature of the 

 well-ordered general course 1 Since a paper 

 such as this is more or less the writer's con- 

 fession of faith, I may as well conclude by 

 telling what we are attempting to do in the 

 institution which I represent. First, the 

 course is one in general iiology, in which 

 the professors of botany and zoology lecture 

 in turn, each completing a topic before giv- 

 ing place to the other. During the greater 

 part of the year the morphology of the two 

 kingdoms is developed, but each form 

 selected for study is considered not on its 

 own account, but is introduced in order to 

 illustrate some fundamental principle. 

 Form and function go hand in hand, each 

 supplementing the other. Thus the course 

 is strung on an evolutionary and also a phys- 

 iological thread. Any form which does 

 not fit in with this scheme is ruthlessly 

 weeded out. At suitable times general 

 topics such as evolution, heredity and cer- 

 tain ecological themes are formally treated. 

 Laboratory work for the most part follows 

 the order of topics adopted in the class- 

 room, but while human physiology is being 

 considered in the class-room the class is dis- 

 secting the frog in the laboratory. 



Realizing that it is somewhat presumptu- 

 ous for one man to speak for all botanists, 

 I have sought the opinion of a botanist who 

 has had long experience in teaching. Dr. 

 John M. Coulter, and have been pleased to 

 find that his view of the subject matter of 

 an elementary course pretty closely cor- 



