APPENDIX E. 



THE NOTE-BOOK. 



A good deal of the eSeotiveness of any course in botany -which 

 includes some laboratory work will depend on the way in which the 

 note-book is kept. 



It is better to have two books, one unruled, for drawing, the other 

 ruled, for written notes.i All drawings and sketches should be made 

 in such a way as to bring out (as far as the pupil understands them) 

 the characteristic features of the organ or structure which is under 

 investigation. A sketch in which a good deal of detail is omitted 

 will, therefore, often be of more value than one in which the attempt 

 is made to represent everything. Shading is in general to be 

 avoided. The student will need constant admonition not to conven- 

 tionalize what he sees, or to try to give general impressions. He 

 would, if unguided, very likely represent the cross-section of conifer- 

 ous wood, magnified 150 or 200 times, by a set of cross-hatchings, 

 with the lines crossing at oblique angles, thus forming a set of very 

 regular, diamond-shaped figures. The best antidote to this tendency 

 is to confront the conventionalizer at every turn with a camera lucida 

 drawing of the thing which he has just sketched, or (better still) with 

 a photomicrograph. 



The written notes should be kept in an orderly way ; and the book 

 which contains them needs to be indexed, day by day, as the work 

 progresses. The writer feels convinced, as the result of a good many 

 years of experience, that it is a mischievous practice to require pupils 

 of secondary-school age to take any notes from, rapid dictation. 

 Matter which cannot be furnished in cyclostyle or hektograph copies 

 to every pupil should be dictated orally, very slowly, or else posted 



1 An excellent note-book in whicli tlie pages are alternately mled and blank, as 

 recommended by Prof. W. F. Ganong of Smith College, is furnislied by the Cam- 

 bridge Botanical Supply Co. 



