The Meeting of the British Association. 
2I 5 
may be called to the views of Mr. 0. H. Latter, who opened the 
discussion, as to the best biological curriculum for school children. 
Mr. Latter advocated nature-study methods for the lower classes in a 
school, and an avoidance of the type system. The theory of 
evolution, without which the ordinary type system is meaningless, 
is, he thinks, beyond the grasp of any but the most advanced 
pupils. When “ nature-study ” has done its work, an interval of 
chemistry and physics might be interpolated to lead on to 
physiological work, as the mind of the growing child naturally 
desires to penetrate beyond the surface phenomena to problems of 
causation. 
Of purely botanical discussions the longest was that on the 
Cytology of Reproduction in the Higher Fungi; of which a fairly 
full account is given in the article already referred to. Here we 
need only to congratulate Miss Fraser and her colleagues and 
pupils on being so successfully engaged in developing a difficult 
and fascinating part of cytological investigation, and Professor 
V. H. Blackman, to whom the original inspiration is due, on having 
founded a flourishing little “ school ” of cyto-mycological research. 
Physiological Papers. 
Professor Armstrong’s paper (in conjunction with his son, Dr. 
E. F. Armstrong) on “ Enzymes, their Mode of Action and 
Function,” was one of the most deeply interesting contributions to 
the Sectional proceedings. Professor Armstrong brought very 
vividly before botanists the immense interest and importance of 
the work that is now being done on the action of enzymes in living 
beings. The outstanding modern conclusion of the reversibility of 
all enzyme action has led on to the belief that not only destruc¬ 
tive but constructive metabolic changes are under the control of 
these bodies, and that this is the great characteristic of chemical 
changes going on in the living body. The conception of an enzyme 
as a skeleton into which the groups of atoms that go to make up 
the structure of the most complicated organic bodies can be packed 
enables us to see how the conception of the mechanism of 
anabolism can be simplified. The complete paper will, we under¬ 
stand, shortly appear in the Annals of Botany. 
