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of topics, text and other books, and special methods. Advice is 

 occasionally offered, however, upon important points in which 

 most teachers are now known to agree. 



6. It recognizes the existence of, and provides for, two modes 

 of procedure in the sequence of topics. In one, which is that 

 strongly advised by the committee, the general facts of plant 

 structure and function, permitting a beginning with large and 

 familiar objects and phenomena, are first studied, to be followed 

 later by a study of representatives of the groups of plants from 

 the lower to the higher ; in the other the study of the groups is 

 the backbone, as it were, of the course, which begins with the 

 lowest forms and introduces the physiological and morphological 

 topics at appropriate places in the ascending series. The two 

 modes, however, lead to substantially the same result, and a 

 common examination is practicable for both. 



7. The amount of work in the course is designed to occupy a 

 a year of five periods a week under good conditions. Where 

 special circumstances, such as exceptional difficulty of obtaining 

 material, etc., prevent the completion of the entire amount while 

 allowing its equivalent in thoroughness, it is recommended that 

 some of the minor topics here and there be omitted rather than 

 that the attempt be made to cover all superficially. To provide 

 for this possibility the examination papers should always include 

 a number of alternative questions. 



8. The time per week, inclusive of recitation, preparation, and 

 laboratory should be the same as for any other subject. Where 

 five periods a week, with an hour of preparation for each, are de- 

 manded for other studies, this course should receive the equiva- 

 lent of two recitation periods with their preparation, together with 

 three double (not six separated) periods in the laboratory. Varia- 

 tion from this should be towards a greater, not a lesser propor- 

 tion of laboratory work. The preparation of records of the 

 laboratory work, in which stress is laid upon diagrammatically 

 accurate drawing and precise and expressive description, should 

 be regarded as an integral part of the course ; and these records, 

 preferably in a notebook, should be counted at least one-third 

 towards the students' standing. 



