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The next topic is the stem. To teach this we should have cross 

 and longitudinal sections of the same kind of wood. Branches 

 of almost any kind can be secured from the Park Department; 

 their wagons will deliver them to the schools and the boys will 

 be only too glad to saw them up into sections and even varnish 

 them for you. This I have had done several times. All that it 

 requires is a letter to the Park Superintendent. As for the other 

 parts of the tree I would not spend much time on them, but I 

 would put most of the emphasis on the leaves, flowers and fruit; 

 and would treat the rest only enough (in a general city course) 

 to show their functions and their relations to the food making 

 and reproductive organs. 



Having thus taken some common shrub or tree as our type 

 form and taught the structure, functions and adaptations of the 

 principal parts, I would then take up any other botanical topic 

 best adapted to the needs and environment of my pupils. With 

 one set of pupils I should emphasize the economic importance of 

 plant products and by-products as food; with another group, 

 especially where there was a manual training department I 

 would spend much time on woods, their kinds, uses, etc. ; and 

 so on selecting my topics according to the needs of the various 

 classes. 



My idea in advocating the study of some one particular plant 

 as outlined above is this: Heretofore we have been studying 

 seeds with the bean and corn as types, roots with the carrot and 

 parsnip as types, and stems with the oak sections and horse- 

 chestnut twigs, but somehow or other the pupils never linked 

 them together. To them the bean did one thing, the carrot 

 another, the horsechestnut twig a third and so on. They did 

 not connect them all with the plant as a whole. On the other 

 hand I think, that if we take one complete object, treat it as a 

 whole and in detail, we will secure greater concentration and 

 develop more fully the fundamental mental processes of analysis 

 and synthesis. We can show the relation of the whole to its 

 parts and the parts to the whole. 



Paralleling all of this work and in close connection with it, as 

 one of its most valuable features, I would use to the very fullest 



