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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIII. No. 852 



into sometliiiig that narrows him to a single 

 line of work. He makes a good specialist, 

 but he is too narrow for a botanist. He is 

 far too narrow a man to be put in charge 

 of classes in general botany. 



Again, I think we set our requirements 

 too high for the young teacher. We de- 

 mand much more than is really necessary. 

 "We older men forget how very little we 

 knew when we began teaching. We act as 

 though we felt that men must be stuffed 

 with every detail of technical knowledge 

 before they are ready to be sent out as 

 teachers. We want these men to be pre- 

 pared all around, and well prepared, too. 

 This is all right enough when you are 

 thinking of specialists to fill positions call- 

 ing for a particular preparation. But 

 when the inquiry is made for a young man 

 to be an instructor we should go back to 

 our own experience. We did not know 

 much, but we got on somehow, and our 

 classes seemed to learn from us. Yet to- 

 day we act as though we felt that we must 

 send out young teachers who are perfect 

 machines for any kind of botanical work. 

 We act as though we were not sending out 

 men with initiative and with ability. 



Let me illustrate my meaning by an ex- 

 ample. A few years ago the government 

 sent to Nebraska for a young fellow who 

 was not especially well prepared in botany 

 and took him to Washington, and after a 

 few days shipped him down to Alabama, 

 and put him in charge of a group of men. 

 They were studying pecan tree diseases. 

 This man from northern Nebraska, who 

 had never seen a pecan tree, found himself 

 in charge of a squad of men engaged in 

 budding pecans. He knew nothing about 

 budding pecans. But he had initiative 

 enough to master the situation, and after a 

 night's study and practise he went ahead 

 as though he had been budding pecans all 

 his life, and succeeded! I did not train 



that man in pecan budding ; in fact I could 

 not have recommended him as a budder of 

 pecans. Yet he ' ' made good, ' ' not because 

 he had been stuffed by the right kind of 

 knowledge, but because with his founda- 

 tion of knowledge he had energy and 

 ability. 



Now let us ask whether we are not set- 

 ting up a wrong standard ? We are think- 

 ing of how full a man is of the botany we 

 have put into him. Should not our atti- 

 tude be this: "this man has made a good 

 beginning, he has the right kind of ma- 

 terial in him, take him and let him grow 

 up with his work." 



Now there is not one of you here who 

 has not learned ten times more of botany 

 out of college than he learned in college. 

 "You had the qualities in you to make you 

 successful, and had a fair beginning in the 

 science. I was quite interested in looking 

 over the summaries in the second edition of 

 the "American Men of Science" to find 

 that the botanists are requiring young men 

 to work longer for their bachelor's and 

 doctor's degrees than are the chemists, 

 physicists, zoologists, mathematicians or 

 geologists. I do not believe botany is pro- 

 portionally that much harder. We are 

 putting too high a value on what we are 

 putting into our students, and neglecting 

 the man himself. We are in danger of 

 having men grow "stale," as the athletes 

 say. Probably we keep our men with us 

 too long. We should send them out while 

 they are still fresh and vigoroizs. 



I think we should map out very defi- 

 nitely a series of successive semesters of 

 work that should constitute fair prepara- 

 tion for the average young man who wishes 

 to become a botanist. Such a botanist 

 should be ready to begin teaching, or even 

 investigating, not as an expert, but as a 

 beginner. And every one must necessarily 

 be a beginner in his work at one time in 



