﻿Book Notices. 527 



improvements. Such a manual tends to meet a long-felt want among 

 Canadian botanists, and will serve a most useful purpose. 



As a text book for the use of schools, however, interest centres 

 chiefly in the first portion of the book. For purposes of elementary 

 education, where controversial questions have no place, the value 

 of such a text-book is to be measured very largely by the directness and 

 accuracy with which recognised facts are stated. To continue the pre- 

 sentation of views which have been recognised as erroneous for many 

 years, imposes upon those who are engaged in teaching the higher 

 aspects of the subject the difficult task of undoing the teaching of the 

 schools. Thus on pages 208-209 we are informed that Dicotyledons are 

 either angiospermous or gymnospermous, a statement which wholly 

 destroys the educational value of the classification employed, since 

 it introduces an absolutely incorrect idea of relationship. 



An appendix gives a "Selection from Examination Papers," the 

 obvious purport of which appears to be to give the prospective student 

 some notion of the ground covered in the university work. A revised 

 edition of a text-book might be supposed to include such an item in the 

 up-to-date changes. It is, therefore, a matter of some surprise to find 

 that these selections are the same as those which appeared in 1887, and 

 in one case at least they represent work of a character which has been 

 imknown for the last fourteen years. It is to be regretted that the 

 author could not see his way to fully justify the use of the term 

 revised. D. P. P. 



Vegetable Physiology.' —In the form of a small pamphlet of 32 

 pages, Dr. Arthur has brought together directions for a number 

 of experiments illustrative of the most prominent functions .of the 

 plant as employed by him in connection with his classes at Purdue 

 University. No attempt is made to introduce the student to an ela- 

 borate course in plant physiology, the directions being adapted rather 

 to the needs of an elementary course. By suggestion, rather than 

 detailed direction, the student is led to exercise his own powers of 

 observation, develop originality, and realize that there is a much 

 larger field for inquiry beyond. 



D. P. P. 



Botanical Text-Book. ^ — The rapidity with which new text-books 

 of Botany are being produced at the present time is not always a 

 matter for congratulation either in the interests of the student, the 

 teacher or the science, since, in the majority of cases, they either per- 

 petuate erroneous ideas or show little, if any, special adaptation to the 



1 Laboratory Exercises in Vegetable Pliysiology by Dr. J. C. Arthur. Kinney and 

 Herbert, Lafayette, Ind., 32 p., 1897. 



2 Elementary Botany, Percy Groom, M.A., F.L.S. Geo. Bell & Sons, Londoti, 2J2 

 pp., 275 ill., 1898. 



