62 Canadian Record of Science. 



Book Notices. ' 



Elementary Botany. — By George F. Atkinson, Ph.B., Professor of 

 Botany, Cornell University. 444 pages ; illustrated. Publishers, 

 Holt & Co., New York. 



The "elementary botany" of to-day is vastly different from the 

 elementary botany of ten or fifteen years ago. This is largely due to 

 the changed method of presenting to the student the rudiments 

 of botany. The old method introduced the pupil to the technicalities 

 of systematic botany by way of the arbitrary rulings of the manual. 

 .If he enjoyed puzzles of that kind, he specialized in botany and the 

 natural sciences, and eventually obtained his reward by seeing rela- 

 tionships in a broad and comprehensive way, but if these analogies 

 had been first observed, it is probable that the "analysis" of the 

 flower would not have appeared so tiresome. This work, presented -to 

 the public generally, but to teachers particularly, marks an important 

 step in the new direction. This newer method is, in the words of the 

 author, " to study first some of the life processes of plants, especially 

 those which illustrate the fundamental principles of nutrition, assimi- 

 lation, growth and irritability. In studying each one of these topics 

 plants are chosen so far as possible from several of the great groups. 

 Numbers of the lower as well as of the higher plants are employed in 

 order to show that the process is fundamentally the same in all 

 plants. ... In this way, the mind is centred on this process and 

 the discovery to the pupil that it is fundamentally the same in such 

 widely different plants arouses a keen interest not only in the plants 

 themselves, but in the method which attends the discovery of this 

 general principle." 



This volume is divided into three parts, Part I. being devoted to the 

 life processes of the plant, absorption, transpiration, respiration, 

 nutrition and the like. Part II. discusses the morphology of the 

 plant and the relationships of different families. Part III. , perhaps 

 the most interesting section of the book, is devoted to ecology or the 

 study of plants in their mutual and environmental relationships. The 

 author fitly points out that by a study of the life histories of plants, 

 their habits of behavior under different conditions of environment, we 

 shall broaden our concept of nature and cultivate our esthetic, obser- 

 vational and reasoning faculties. How much more important this is 

 to the student than to be possessed of a few stray and disconnected 

 facts of natural history ! Ecology means study in the field, and is the 

 kind of valuable nature-study-work so heartily and ably encouraged 

 and fostered by the Natural Historj' Society of Montreal and the 

 Field Naturalists' Club of Ottawa. Atkinson's Elementary Botany 

 will be of great value to High School teachers and to teachers in 



