Apeil 28, 1911] 



SCIENCE 



647 



the rest of you, or some of you, feel the 

 same way. I was beginning, a few minutes 

 ago, to congratulate myself that such in- 

 struction as I had received was received 

 twenty-five years ago instead of at the 

 present time, because I know that if it had 

 been received at the present time I could 

 have become nothing but some poor igno- 

 ramus. 



First of all, I should like to refer to some 

 of the ideas presented here this evening: 



Professor Bessey stated that our students 

 in the university are looking here and there 

 without reference to any aim in life, and I 

 wondered whether he had actually looked 

 into the matter of student elections in his 

 university, where elections have been quite 

 free, as they are in the university with 

 which I am connected, or whether he has 

 been seriously investigating this subject. 

 The matter has been looked into in my uni- 

 versity, and there it is found that more 

 than 80 per cent, of the students who have 

 perfect freedom in elections have elected 

 with some aim. There is a comparatively 

 small percentage of students who are 

 browsing around without taking any di- 

 rection. 



The second thing that Dr. Bessey says is 

 that he is trying a system of instruction in 

 his university of 20 to 25 hours in botany 

 as preparation for a college or university 

 instructorship. That is the minimum we 

 in Michigan think the average student 

 should have for preparation to teach bot- 

 any in the high school. 



It was said a few minutes ago by Dr. 

 Coulter that it is not a matter of the num- 

 ber of hours the student spends on a sub- 

 ject, but it is the ability which the student 

 develops for doing things, his attitude, his 

 efficiency, his originality, that makes him 

 able to advance. I had some years ago a 

 student who took only one year in botany. 

 She was a teacher, and she had been teach- 



ing for some time, and I gave that woman 

 the strongest recommendation of any wo- 

 man who went out that year. She had only 

 one year, and yet she was ready. It is not 

 how many courses the student has, it is a 

 matter of the student's ability to take new 

 ground, to start in a new direction and 

 develop the subject for himself. 



On the side of research, I can not help 

 placing in contrast to the quantity of pre- 

 paratory work which some of us think we 

 must have from our students before coming 

 to research, that well-tried system in the 

 German universities with which you are all 

 familiar, and which reduces the number of 

 students to a few successful ones by the law 

 of survival of the fittest. You know that, 

 in the German universities, the student 

 takes perhaps on the average not more than 

 one year in elementary botany, and is then 

 allowed to go along for a few weeks, or 

 possibly a semester with a Vorar'beit, and 

 is then thrown mostly upon his own re- 

 sources for investigation. There are many 

 successful botany teachers and investiga- 

 tors who come out of that sort of training. 

 I wouldn't advocate that sort of training in 

 this country ; but I think there is danger of 

 our overdoing the matter in endeavoring 

 to give the student something of all kinds 

 of knowledge in botany. If the student is 

 fit for any kind of teaching after he has 

 had proper training in some lines of work 

 he will be able to work out something for 

 himself that he may not have been trained 

 for in the schools. 



It was stated here also in one of the 

 addresses that the aim of general education 

 is not for research. I think that statement 

 was made. I would not say that one aim 

 of general botanical education is not for 

 research. What have we been talking 

 about and hearing about in this session of 

 scientific societies in Minneapolis? We 

 have been hearing of the need of the in- 



