141 



The college teacher of biological sciences may find the first 

 part of the Miller and Blaydes an interesting introduction to the 

 field of science pedagogy. While much that is currently printed 

 under this general head is of ephemeral value when not absolutely 

 useless it is none the less true that many college teachers could profit 

 through some well selected reading in the field of science education. 

 For too many hiol()g\- teachers, high school as well as college, 

 the value of any given biology course is judged chiefly by the 

 number of separate facts which the student can be made to memo- 

 rize and repeat. The idea that piles of facts have no more real 

 value than jumbled piles of bricks is obviously not as widely appre- 

 ciated as it might be. The real responsibilities of science teaching 

 can l)e realized only when factual material is used to build definite 

 structures, and particularly, when the student is gradually trained 

 to fashion his own syntheses. 



One point becomes noticeable to anyone who compares recent 

 educational literature with older discussions along the same line ; 

 vocabularies and phrases change as the years go by ; the ideas 

 remain much the same. Two older books, dealing with the presen- 

 tation of a biological science objectively, and which may be con- 

 sulted with profit, are Ganong's "The teaching botanist," and 

 Osterhout's "Experiments with plants," both still in print (Mac- 

 millan). 



An Introduction to Botany* 



R. C. Benedict 



It is appropriate to review Priestley and Scott's "Introduction 

 to botany" in association with a review of "Methods in Biology" 

 because this botany represents a distinctive methodology very care- 

 fully and logically worked out. Whether American botany teachers 

 find its methods feasible under American conditions or not, it 

 seems certain that they will find this text valuable both as an aid 

 to their own teaching and as reference reading for their students. 



The Priestley and Scott is designed to provide students both 

 with general textual material and with directions for laboratory 



* Priestley, J. H., and Scott, Lorna I. An introduction to botany. Long- 

 mans, Green & Co., Ltd., London, 1938. $6.00. 



