VALUE OF BOTANICAL TEAINING 399 
diagnosis. Some of our greatest lawyers and medical men 
have pronounced Systematic Nat. Hist, as an admirable 
training for medical and legal enquiry, in sifting evidence and 
disease, etc. etc. Also Syst. Bot., i.e. the Nat. Ord., should 
be the prominent goal for the beginner, as they are the ex- 
pressions of the Morphology, Structure and all other attributes 
of plants. Classifying plants is further an exercise of the 
reasoning faculties, always bringing memory and judgment 
into play, and we all know ' Memoria augetur excolendo.' 
An Introductory Chapter of this kind would invite many 
thoughtful pupils to think for themselves, and give a dignity 
to the study that teachers would appreciate. These hints, 
if worth anything, may help you to a new feature for a reprint. 
Another thing must be impressed at the present day, — 
that Botany is a knowledge of jplants — that Physiology, 
Anatomy, etc. etc., are one thing, but Physiological, etc., 
Botany quite another. Also that in examining in Botany the 
teacher should never go beyond what the pupil has a practical 
knowledge of. Botany is a Science of Observation, and the 
present plan of examining pupils in what they have coached 
or crammed up is ruinous. They are disgusted at finding that 
after taking an honor in Botany, Avhen they want to progress 
in the Science, they have to go back to the Elements. If 
teachers understood this, they would themselves see the 
necessity of learning. Tell them that a child with a butter- 
cup could make out whether Torrey ^ or Gray knew most of 
Botany, but that neither Torrey nor Gray could tell which 
of two children knew most of plants by examining them 
on what they had only read. Beading without observation 
on the Sciences of Observation is most destructive. The 
difference between the modes of teaching required for the 
Natural Sciences and Moral Sciences, etc., has never yet been 
properly put, and until it is, all hopes of getting the Nat. 
Sciences introduced into Elementary Education are illusory. 
Allowing for the difference of aim between a handbook and 
a course of lectures, there is a close parallel between these 
1 John Torrey, M.D., LL.D. (1796-1873), was born in New York, and became a 
pupil of Amos Eaton, pioneer of Natural Science. In 1818 he took his medical 
degree and practised as a doctor, but devoted his leisure to botany and mineralogy. 
He published a Flora of the North and Middle Sections of the U.S.A., 1824, and 
a Flora of New York, completed 1843, &c., &c. Professor of Botany in the 
Medical College, and at Princeton College, aaid was also State Botanist. 
