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SCIENCE 



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



a statement like this, I feel that it is prac- 

 tically impossible to give him any real un- 

 derstanding of the many concepts in it, in 

 any beginning course. We succeed in 

 making our beginners feel, as a conse- 

 quence, that botany is nothing but a lot of 

 long hard names. 



Now what is the remedy for the dearth 

 of advanced students? In the first place, 

 I recognize fully that we will hold students 

 for advanced work only as we gain their 

 interest and sympathy in the general 

 courses. The test of our general courses in 

 college botany must be — what does the stu- 

 dent need, and what must he use in every- 

 day life. To many of you this practical 

 outlook upon the subject seems to be in 

 conflict with what we call a scientific 

 presentation. To me, scientific botany 

 means presenting the important facts about 

 plants from the standpoint of their every- 

 day behavior and use, in a thorough, accu- 

 rate and systematic fashion. While it is a 

 time-worn truism to say that we must pro- 

 ceed from the known to the unknown, yet 

 we must realize that no one ever succeeded 

 in learning in any other manner. We 

 must take the student in his every-day 

 plant environment, set him to work puz- 

 zling about it, and point out the way by 

 which he can solve his own puzzles. I 

 think it is as unfortunate as it is illogical, 

 that our education should be built upon the 

 assumption that the early years are for 

 memorizing, and the later years for rea- 

 soning. Until parents and teachers have 

 stified the spirit of curiosity, which is only 

 the research spirit in an earlier form, the 

 child is constantly reaching out for new 

 experiences, asking endless questions, and 

 taking endless clocks and dolls to pieces. 

 I will admit that this spirit of inquiry has 

 almost disappeared by the time the student 

 enters college, but it can be fanned into an 

 active flame again in many cases. Still 



more important than this, however, is to 

 find a way to keep it alive. 



For the most practical of all remedies, we 

 must give our attention to the difficulties 

 arising out of the fact that the school year 

 runs the wrong way around. If the stu- 

 dent is to deal with live plants, with plants 

 as agents and materials in every-day life, 

 as he must to be interested and benefited, 

 we must realize that these things can be 

 obtained only by the most careful planning. 

 We must not only find means for stretching 

 the plant season at both ends, in the spring 

 and in the fall, but much more important 

 still, we must confront the fact that begin- 

 ning botany can not be properly taught 

 without adequate greenhouses, as well as 

 gardens. The greenhouse means constant 

 contact with the most interesting and the 

 most useful plants throughout the whole 

 school year. It lends itself readily to the 

 task of bringing the student into touch 

 with the uses and applications of plants in 

 a natural way. Indeed, the most indis- 

 pensable feature of real botanical study, 

 that of independent first-hand work with 

 the living plant, is hardly possible without 

 adequate greenhouses. The every-day rela- 

 tions between man and plants are of vastly 

 more importance than all of the other 

 things that we teach under the name of 

 botany. They will not only crowd to over- 

 flowing the two years of beginning botany, 

 but they will fill up a large part of the 

 advanced courses. 



One of our most signal failures arises 

 from our feeling that a record in the form 

 of drawings or notes constitutes knowledge 

 — that the record indicates that the student 

 really understands what he is recording. 

 Nothing is further from the truth, as a 

 rule. The record has no value ; indeed, it 

 rather does harm, except to indicate to 

 what extent the beginner observes correctly 

 and thoroughly. As something to be 



