76 Proceedings of the Ohio State Academy of Science. 



the intricacies of structure and function. Ground is covered 

 more rapidly in this manner, and perhaps as many survive first 

 courses by this method as by the one that we are proposing. 

 But the average student loses himself in a maze of difhciilties and 

 is so occupied in assimilating the plethora of good things im- 

 parted that he has no time tO' think or even care about plants. 

 When this method is followed with beginners, the printed page 

 and text figures stand before the student's imagination before 

 he goes to the laboratory, and plants and plant parts leave little 

 impression after the work is done. Laboratory work seldom 

 becomes irksome when the plant is studied first. The student 

 passes as good or better quizzes when the plant study follows 

 instruction by text and lecture ; but this is l^ecause many persons 

 prefer to get their knowledge passively from printed page, or 

 word of mouth, and the written test becomes merely a memory 

 exercise, showing little if anything regarding the students' know- 

 ledge of plants. 



Therefore, some teachers of Botany have abandoned the 

 lecture method for beginners, have substituted observation first, 

 then study with outlines for guides, and for the class room, 

 informal discussions and quizzes, both oral and written. Students 

 find that this requires more of them and often ask for the lectures 

 before it has proceeded far. They also object to the inadequate 

 presentation, conrtadictory statements, and errors of text-books ; 

 but it scarcely seems best to do away with these altogether, im- 

 perfect as they are. An introduction to the literature seems 

 important, even for the first year student in college. But the 

 text and other literature admitted should be secondary to the 

 plant and the teacher. 



Many years ago a friend, who had just graduated from 

 college, secured a position as professor of Biology. In a short 

 time he wrote that he intended to give his students more field 

 work and some of the practical botany, in which the community 

 about his college was interested. After three or four years of 

 graduate study, this teacher visited me, and went with us on a 

 class field trip. It was at once apparent that he had lost much of 

 his knowledge of the local flora, and inquiry brought the informa- 



