1893.] Recent Literature. 989 
appointed. The author of the little work before us has for many years 
been a successful teacher of Botany in one of our great State Univer- 
sities, and has had not only the experience which his own teaching has 
brought him, but he has seen much of the results of botanical teach- 
ing in the high schools which annually send up their graduates to the 
University. The book is intended for use in such preparatory schools 
and was prepared in answer to frequent inquiries from high sobol 
teachers. 
The leading thought in the book may be gathered from the following 
sentence in the chapter addressed to the teacher. “In order to use 
these exercises successfully it will be necessary to adopt the laboratory 
as distinguished from the text-book method of instruction. 
Two short chapters are given to the discussion of the proper outfit 
for a botanical laboratory for high schools. 
One of these includes lists of works of reference hnde several heads : 
“ Laboratory Manaels,” “ Structural and Physiological,” “ Morphologi- 
cal and Systematic," “ Floras,” “Cryptogamic Botany,” “General,” 
and “ Current Literature.” The lists are well made and the author 
well says the books named “ought to have a place in any respectable 
school library.” 
The other chapter under this head gives good suggestions about the 
laboratory itself, the tables, microscope (small “ Continental” stands 
recommended), glassware, regents, etc. 
Then follow laboratory studies of seeds, growth of plants from ‘the 
seed, root, leaf, flower and fruits. These serve to train the pupil to 
close observation. He then takes up the careful study of plants repre- 
senting the natural groups of the vegetable kingdom. Thus the “ Sea- 
weeds and their Allies” are represented by pond scum (Spirogyra) and 
green felt ( Vaucheria) ; mosses and liverworts are taken next, followed 
by ferns, horsetails, club-mosses, the pine family, the grass family, etc., 
though Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons, ending with the Composite. 
The treatment reminds one of that in Arthur, Barnes and Coulter's 
“Plant Dissection,” of course much simplified. 
The author has adopted a modification of Eichler's sequence of the 
families of the flowering plants. Very properly, too, he makes a dis- 
tinction between “ families” and “ orders” (. 241). 
The book will, if used by o high pese do maoh to mn the 
Itvafbhot l stimu- 
late s tome of our colleges also to better work than they have been doing. 
CHARLES E. Bessey. 
