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botany think of the following principles upon which the course 

 is based ? From them the committee should receive most help- 

 ful criticisms. Here, as indicated by the committee in the last 

 paragraph of this paper, is an opportunity by the high school 

 teachers to help form the " college requirements" which are so 

 generally denounced in all secondary subjects. 



PRINCIPLES UPON WHICH THE COURSE IS FORMULATED 



1. It is founded upon the two important reports of the Nat- 

 ional Educational Association — the " Report of the Committee 

 of Ten " (Washington, 1893), and the Report on College Entrance 

 Requirements (Chicago, 1899). These have been modified in 

 accord with the results of more recent experience, and the advice 

 of leading teachers. 



2. While intended primarily as an option for entrance to col- 

 lege, it is designed equally for the education in the high school of 

 the general student who can follow the subject no farther ; there 

 are in botany no advantages in having the college preparatory 

 and the general educational courses different, at least none that 

 are at all com.mensurate with the additional burden thus laid upon 

 the schools. 



3. It is designed to yield a mental discipline fully equal in 

 quality and quantity that yielded by any other subject studied 

 for the same length of time. 



4. It should, if possible, have as a foundation a considerable 

 body of botanical fact learned through nature-study in the lower 

 schools ; it should be given in one of the three upper years as 

 part of a four years' high-school course in the sciences : it should 

 be considered and treated as an elementary or preliminary course 

 leading to second courses in college, and colleges accepting the 

 option should arrange second courses to articulate economically 

 with it. 



5. The immediate plan of its construction is very simple, namely, 

 to include those topics in the leading divisions of the subject 

 which most teachers now regard as fundamental, whether for 

 their value in scientific training, or as knowledge; but the individ- 

 ual teacher is left free to follow his own judgment as to sequence 



