460 BOTANICAL WORK OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 



fortunately kept my collections separate." Fortunately indeed; for it 

 was the results extracted from these collections, when worked up sub- 

 sequently by Sir Joseph Hooker, which determined the main work of 

 his life. "It was such cases as that of the Galapagos Archipelago 

 which chiefly led me to study the origin of species" (III, 159). 



Henslow's actual method of teaching went some way to anticipate 

 the practical methods of which we are all so proud. " He was the first 

 to introduce into the botanical examination for degrees in London the 

 system of practical examination" (Memoir, 1G1). But there was a 

 direct simplicity about his class arrangements characteristic of the man. 

 "A large number of specimens - - - were placed in baskets on a 

 side table in the lecture room, with a number of wooden plates and other 

 requisites for dissecting them after a rough fashion, each student pro- 

 viding himself with what he wanted before taking his seat" (ibid., 39). 

 I do not doubt that the results were, in their way, as efficient as we 

 obtain now in more stately laboratories. 



The most interesting feature about his teaching was not, however, its 

 academic aspect, but the use he made of botany as a general educational 

 instrument. " He always held that a man of no powers of observation 

 was quite an exception" (ibid., 163). He thought (and I think he proved) 

 that botany might be used "for strengthening the observant faculties 

 and expanding the reasoning powers of children in all classes of society" 

 (ibid., 99). The difficulty with which those who undertake now to teach 

 our subject have to deal is that most people ask the question, What is 

 the use of learning botany unless one means to be a botanist % It might, 

 indeed, be replied that as the vast majority of people never learn any- 

 thing effectively, they might as well try botany as anything else. But 

 Henslow looked only to the mental discipline; and it was characteristic 

 of the man and of his belief in his methods that when he was sum- 

 moned to court to lecture to the royal family, his lectures " were, in all 

 respects, identical with those he was in the habit of giving to his little 

 Hitcham scholars" (Memoir, 149); and it must be added that they 

 were not less successful. 



This success naturally attracted attention. Botanical teaching in 

 schools was taken up by the Government, and continues to receive 

 support to the present day. But the primitive spirit has, I am afraid, 

 evaporated. The measurement of results by means of examination 

 has been fatal to its survival. The teacher has to keep steadily before 

 his eyes the necessity of earning his grant. The educational problem 

 retires into the background. " The strengthening of the observant 

 faculties," and the rest of the Henslowian programme, must give way 

 to the imperious necessity of presenting to the examiner candidates 

 equipped with at least the minimum of text-book formulas reproducible 

 on paper. I do not speak in this matter without painful experience. 

 The most astute examiner is defeated by the still more astute crammer. 

 The objective basis of the study on which its whole usefulness is built 



