104 
parison of an old with a new text book of zodlogy. Take, 
for instance, Tenney’s ‘‘ Manual of Zodlogy,” 1871, and 
Schiedt’s ‘‘ Principles of Zodlogy,” 1892. Of Tenney’s 
535 pages of text, beginning with man, 360 are devoted 
to the vertebrata, and a footnote on page 533 disposes of 
the porifera and protozoa. In Schiedt’s work of 298 
pages of text the first 70 are devoted to the protozoa, and 
and the last 13 are all that are allowed the vertebrata. 
Not only do our recent text books in zoélogy follow the 
new order, but in all we shall find relatively more space 
given to the heretofore neglected lower branches of the 
animal kingdom. 
This takes us to the matter of the representation of 
the field which botany should cover, and here we shall 
find that our ‘‘school botany ” has remained so far behind 
the real growing science of botany as to forfeit even the 
right to use its title. In the vegetable kingdom, as well 
as in the animal, science has come to recognize a number 
of large and important elementary branches. Let the 
following diagram represent the botanical field,’ and, 
remembering what school zoology is doing for its separate 
branches, note the small portion of this large’ field which 
is presented to students who imagine that they are 
acquiring a fair representation of the vegetal kingdom 
as it exists to-day: 
PROTOPHITA _ | 
SPERAIAPHY 
BRYOPHYTA 
ETERIDOPHY TA 
ea 
4 fod 
z a 
& is 
a a 
: ee 
2) 2 
2 ce 
a E 
uw x 
are Monoectyledons. 6. Dicetyledons, 
The shaded portions of the field show that part which 
is thus falsely made to represent the whole. Five great 
branches ignored, one of the two divisions of the last 
branch barely mentioned, but 2 out of 7 orders of 
monocotyledons and about 17 out of 30 orders of 
dicotyledons represented, and this bit of one-sided patch- 
work called botany. Ten weeks spent in the study of the 
external structure and the analysis of fifty or more native 
butterflies, with the aid of French’s ‘‘ Butterflies of the 
Eastern United States,” would furnish work of precisely 
the same value in every respect as the work usually done 
in school botany, but the instructor would in all prob- 
ability be modest enough to call the study entomology. 
The weakness of school botany by no means ends here, 
however. Examine the matter of classification. Groups 
of species are in a small part recognized, as are also 
groups of genera, but the relationships between families 
are utterly ignored. The higher groups are used as if for 
the express purpose of perpetuating ancient errors. The 
gymnosperms are still san@iviched between the allied 
monocotyledons and dicotyledons, and in a similar manner 
the choripetala are rudely and unnaturally split into the 
polypetalous and apetalous divisions and the gamopetalz 
thrust in between them, the more perfectly to hide their 
natural relationships. Note the false position still held 
by the ranunculacez, though rightfully belonging to the 
composite, and note also the many instances in which a 
terminology abandoned by science is most seduously 
preserved. 
Small as is the portion presented, and weak as is the 
taxonomy, still weaker is the outline and coloring with 
which even that small portion is presented. Here, again, 
1The form more properly should have represented seven distinct branches, but for 
the purpose used this more common arrangement is all-sufficient, 
SCL EN @iy 
Vol. XXIII. No. 577 
we may draw an interesting lesson through another com- 
parison of zoélogical text books. While in the older 
works the matter of classification is made of paramount 
importance, and fills the greater part of the volume, in the 
new English university extension manual, Thompson’s 
“Study of Animal Life,” but 63 out of 369 pages are 
used for this purpose, the rest being devoted to the pre- 
sentation of the manifold aspects under which we may 
view and study the animal kingdom. ‘This book repre- 
sents the science of the nineteenth century. How is it 
with our school botany? Plant anatomy is represented 
by merely external features. Of plant physiology, mor- 
phology, embryology, phylogeny, geographical distribu- 
tion, relation to insects, birds, mammals, man, etc., 
nothing is said. How fascinating is the botany of which 
Grant Allen gives us such charming glimpses in his 
“Vignettes from Nature,” ‘‘ Evolutionist at Large,” and 
other sketches; how cold and repellent this usurper. 
Examine the average course in botany to-day and you 
could easily imagine yourself back in the time of Linneeus. 
As if Goéthe, Sprengel, Brown, von Mohl and a host of 
other workers were yet unborn and Charles Darwin a 
coming event for which the world is waiting. 
Meagre and pitiable as may appear this object, which 
masquerades as botany, it is by no means yet seen in its 
nakedness. In some schools, and these by no means few 
in number, we shall find that ‘‘botany ”’ has been reduced 
to a mere language study through which the meanings of 
such terms as alternate, terminal, fibrous, linear, oblong, 
elliptical, ovate, orbicular, obtuse, truncate, and a host 
of others, are learned. Gray’s Lessons are studied in the 
winter without specimens, and the technical terms com- 
mitted to memory in spite of the warning of the author 
himself, who says in the preface (1887), ‘‘No effort 
should be made to commit technical terms to memory. 
Any term used in describing a plant or explaining its 
structure can be looked up when it is wanted, and that 
should suffice.” 
The matter is really more serious than one would at first 
suppose. There are, it is true, certain indications which 
lead us to anticipate improvement. Good text books are 
beginning to appear. We have those of Bessey, Camp- 
bell and Spalding, which show a marked advance in the 
right direction; but so great is the gulf between these 
real text books and the limited manuals of a sectional 
flora, like those of Wood and Gray, that the Regents of 
the State of New York, basing their questions, as they do, 
on these manuals, practically prohibit the use of the 
better text books. It is true that in some places good 
work, of the character of that in Newell’s ‘‘ Outlines of 
Lessons in Botany,” is being accomplished; and in some 
schools a bit of real botany is smuggled in through the 
use of Newell’s *‘ Botany Readers,” or- Hale’s ‘‘ Little 
Flower People”; but the day is ripe for a general forward 
movement all along the line. 
It is high time that all school teachers, those studying 
to become teachers, and the children in our high schoo'= 
as well, knew something of the bacteria, and of 
millions of human beings murdered through the ignorant 
distribution of septic germs. Botany may be made to 
Speak with no uncertain sound concerning the gospel of 
cleanliness. The compound microscope, to those who 
have used it, is known to be no obstacle in the way. It 
is high time that we gave our farmers-to-be a chance in 
the high school to learn something of the rusts, smuts 
and mildews which in some years cause the farmers of 
America to lose as high as a billion dollars’ worth of food 
stuffs. There is an eminently practical side to the ques- 
tion, a side that is too frequently ignored. 
I impeach our school botany for lack of logical order 
in presentation, for giving a disjointed and distorted 
