Maecii 14, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



409 



seedcoat at the tip but continues, as a 

 jacket two cells in thickness, to enclose the 

 embryo till the latter, after reaching a 

 size of .15 mm. as a globular, undifferen- 

 tiated mass of cells, at length develops two 

 cotyledons and a root, and the latter bursts 

 through the endosperm and bends down 

 to anchor in the soil. From the beginning 

 of its development to the time when it 

 drops, with the exhausted seed, from the 

 tips of the highly elevated cotyledons the 

 endosperm seems never to serve for the stor- 

 age of food material, but always as a digest- 

 ing and absorbing organ for dissolving and 

 passing on to the embryo the starch with 

 which the abundant perisperm is filled. 

 This seems to be the sole function of the 

 €ndosperm also in many other genera, es- 

 pecially those with abundant perisperm, e. 

 g., Saururus, Eeckeria, Dianthus and Ce- 

 rastium. 



Beport of the Committee on the Standard 

 College Entrance Option in Botany: 

 Presented by the Chairman, Professor 

 W. F. Ganong, Smith College. 

 The report stated that the option had 

 been formulated by the committee, had 

 been printed and distributed to members 

 in April and had been widely circulated 

 among prominent teachers. Notes calling 

 attention to it had been inserted in Sci- 

 ence and in School Science and had 

 caused a demand which exhausted the edi- 

 tion of 200 copies. Taking into considera- 

 tion the criticisms and suggestions received, 

 the Committee (reduced to the chairman 

 and Professor Lloyd by the withdra^val of 

 Professor Atkinson) prepared a revised 

 edition Avhich was printed in June and dis- 

 tributed in October. As a whole, the re- 

 plies to the request of the Committee for 

 suggestions, etc., indicated a surprisingly 

 wide approval of the features of the op- 

 tion recommended by the Committee. The 

 adverse criticisms were practically only 



thi-ee. First, it was thought by some too 

 difficult for a year of high school study. 

 In answer to this it was stated that it was 

 the intention to make it fully as hard as 

 a year of any other subject whatsoever 

 taught in the high schools. The time is 

 past when botany should be content to oc- 

 cupy a humble corner in the high school 

 curriculum. It may be offered or not of- 

 fered, but if offered at all it must be upon 

 a plane equal to that of any other subject 

 whatever. Second, it was objected, though 

 not widely, that it laid too much stress 

 upon ecology, which was thought not to 

 be a proper high school study. The gen- 

 eral consensus of opinion, however, seems to 

 favor some ecology in the high school 

 course, though it should be only of the 

 most concrete and definite sort, and it is 

 this kind of ecology the Committee has 

 endeavored to emphasize. Third, it has 

 been held that the part dealing with the 

 types of plants and groups should not 

 proceed primarily, as the Committee rec- 

 ommends, from the point of view of nat- 

 ural history but from that of morphology. 

 In answer to this the Committee points 

 out that the one does not exclude the other, 

 and that in order that the course may be 

 equally available for the education of those 

 who go no farther and for those who con- 

 tinue into higher courses, it seems best to 

 approach the subject from that point of 

 view which -will have the most meaning for 

 the average high school student, and 

 which will yield him the knowledge of 

 most pleasure and, profit to him in after 

 life. In the opinion of the Committee such 

 a point of view is rather that of natural 

 history than of comparative morphology, 

 and the special comparative morphology of 

 the groups can best be taken up in second 

 courses by those who go on. It was re- 

 ported that the option had been formally 

 adopted by the College Entrance Exami- 

 nation Board, and would shortly be pub- 



