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studying the behavior of a plant toward the light, we choose one 

 which responds readily and grows quickly. Here millet would 

 perhaps be better than Indian corn. . . . Knowledge is to us real 

 in precise proportion to our actual contact with the things them- 

 selves. The most vivid ideas about plants are gained by experi- 

 menting with the plants themselves; not even reading a full 

 account of an experiment will take the place of doing it, however 

 successful or unsuccessful that may be. The teacher can always 

 rest upon one certainty, namely that the experiment always tell 

 the truth. To be sure, it may not come out as we expect, but 

 it comes out exactly as it should. Our business is to know what 

 the conditions are and we find this out sometimes only by means 

 of a so-called insuccessful experiment. 



The result of this kind of teaching cannot be over-estimated. 

 An agricultural class made up of thoughtful farmers who are 

 willing to experiment for themselves would mean a very great 

 advance in mental development and in material prosperity. This 

 is one of the great aims of agricultural education, namely to 

 cultivate a critical and inquiring frame of mind. We hardly 

 say too much when we declare that success in this direction will 

 be a measure of the amount and the character of experimental 

 work that is done in our schools. 



NEWS ITEMS. 



Robert A. Harper, Ph.D., now professor of botany in the Uni- 

 versity of Wisconsin, is to become Torrey professor of botany at 

 Columbia University; succeeding the late Lucien M. Under- 

 wood. He was graduated from Oberlin College in 1886, received 

 the degree of Ph.D. at Bonn in 1896, and after service in Gates 

 College, and secondary schools, became in 1891 professor in Lake 

 Forest University. In 1898 he went to the University of 

 Wisconsion. 



Dr. John W. Harshberger, assistant professor of botany at 

 the University of Pennsylvania, whose monumental work on the 

 plant geography of North America has just appeared, has been 

 advanced to professor of botany. 



