Proceedings of the Ohio State Academy of Science. 8i 



Our teacher's course has proved an aid to our own labora- 

 tories, since there have never been more than four or five students 

 who expect to teach and are far enough advancd tO' take the course 

 in the same year. These observe and suggest in the class room 

 and the laboratory under the direction of the head of the de- 

 partment and the graduate instructor. At the same time they 

 are reading on methods of teaching Botany, studying laboratory 

 administration, and are reviewing texts and literature. Assist- 

 ants are chosen from those who have taken this course. In more 

 specialized courses, assistants are sometimes chosen from those 

 who have not taken the teacher's course. 



No college teacher of short experience should attempt to use 

 student assistants, and some of them never. The graduate 

 should be employed instead, for any independent instructing. If 

 the graduate schools were giving us better teachers, it might be 

 advisable to take the university graduate student in every in- 

 stance where funds are available to pay the price demanded. But 

 these persons are sometimes imbued with the research spirit and 

 have so- little teaching experience that they regard instruction 

 secondary to investigation, and think that it consists in pouring 

 all that they know into the heads of undergraduates, whether they 

 can assimilate it or not. Persons who are more interested in 

 their subject and research than in teaching and their students do 

 well enough in the universities, but need to change their point 

 of view before they can be of much value in the colleges. 



As the graduate schools frequently fail to produce good 

 college teachers because interested chiefly in research, so the 

 colleges often fail to prepare efficient teachers for the high schools 

 and academies because their main work is not preparing teachers. 

 Fortunately, the Botany taught in college is as much more 

 difficult than what should be taught in the high school as is that 

 of the graduate school more difficult than that which should be 

 given in the college, — fortunately because the teacher should 

 know much more of his subject than he expects to teach. But 

 it becomes a misfortune to know so much when the college 

 graduate tries to give his high school pupils as difficult Botany, 

 and as much, as they could get in the same time in college. It 



