194 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
same endeavour to improve the position of botany as a means to edu- 
cation. ‘It is the purpose of the present work,” Professor Coulter 
tells us, ‘to contribute another suggestion as to the method of 
teaching botany in secondary schools.” The course consists of 
wo 
bE 
also contains certain fundamentals of Physiology that are 
naturally suggested.’ The second book will be dominated by Mor- 
phology, but se structure, function, and classification will be 
nature, a view which he considers of the most permanent value to 
those who can give but half a year to botany; and, secondly, ane 
fact that the work suggested demands little or no use 0 
t 
reverse the order when he is possessed of both books. Again, the 
book is intended to supplement three ‘far more important factors,” 
teacher, laboratory, and field-work. It seeks to do this (1) Py 
means of the text ; (2) by means of the illustrations, which must 
be itudisd as carefally as the text. 
Whatever may be its place in a school curriculum, we have 1n 
this very neat and nicely produced little book an excellent babs. 
duction to the study of the life-relations of plants, or ecology, as it 
matter of illustrations but in this respect Professor Coulter’s sur- 
passes any book of its kind that we remember to have sen e 
figures are remarkable for their beauty even more than for their 
abundance, which is saying much, as there is one to almost eve 
page of text. Some we rigid ste! _Many — been Hebe 
matter is clear, terse, and logical. The conditions and meaning of 
respiration could hardly be more briefly and concisely described 
than on p. oe or the function of stomata than in the paragraph a 
few pages lat 
In the pearl chapters the life-relations of what we may term 
the natural divisions of a plant are successively considered, namely, 
those of foliage, flowers, shoots, roots, and reproductive organs. In 
