288 University Instruction in Botany. [ May, 
considering how little time they have for study, and how many 
of them have reached an age when entering upon new habits of 
thought is not easy. Evidently, if there is to be any instruction 
in botany in the schools which shall amount to anything, it must 
come from those who have studied the subject at college, for it is 
in the universities that botanical experts are found as instructors, 
and it is only there that any systematic and continued study of 
the subject can be attempted. Let us see what sort of botany is 
taught in the universities, and whether any improvement is 
needed or to be desired. 
In many of our universities, and we are not now speaking of 
agricultural colleges, which must be classed with technical schools 
rather than with universities, the study of botany is elective, and 
it would not be far from correct to say that it is chosen by a mod- 
erately large per cent. of students for a single year, and contin- 
ued by a much smaller number, perhaps a third or a quarter, 
during a second year. In all our colleges, whether botany is 
compulsory or elective, the students are not required or supposed 
to have any previous acquaintance with the subject, and in all, 
the first step is to recognize the organs of flowering plants and 
to learn their names. As soon as possible, the student is re- 
quested to provide himself with a manual; a number of flowers, 
from the field or the hot house, as the season serves, is then placed 
in his hands, and he is required, if we may be allowed the expres- 
sion, to “ go through ” them. This last process varies somewhat 
with the fancy of the instructor and the laboratory facilities of 
the college. Where the botanical chair is combined with those 
of zodlogy, chemistry, and the modern languages, the “ going 
through” consists in tracking a flower, just as though it were aà 
thief or a woodchuck, to its hiding-place in the manual by means 
of a key. A neat pencil mark against the specific name serves 
to indicate one step onward in the mental development of the 
student. In those colleges where there is a greater division of 
labor, and one man is obliged to teach only botany and zoology: 
there is generally provided a printed schedule in which the stu- 
dent as he proceeds records the number of stamens and pistils, 
the interesting fact whether the ovary is superior or inferior, and 
other similar details, until, having filled his schedule, he is at lib- 
erty to turn to the key and follow the course we have previously 
described. ; 
In a few colleges, during the first year, students of botany; in 
addition to the analysis of flowering plants, hear a few lectures 
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