54 Some Aspects on the Plea for Reconstruction. 
morphology can produce a more vital and stimulating elementary 
course than is at present customary. 
It is perhaps unfortunate that the clue to some of the details 
of the structure and relations of the reproductive organs of the 
higher plants can only he gained by a study of alternation of 
generations with its many complexities. The result has been that 
“alternation” has tended to dominate the elementary course, 
though it is a phenomenon of very special nature, a detailed 
knowledge of which is not essential to a general elementary 
training in botany. The undue importance which is attached in 
an elementary course to alternation of generations was once 
brought home to me very sharply. I chanced to be asked 
to take the chair at a meeting of a Natural History Society 
at which a local medical man was to give an address. The 
members of the audience had had no special training in biology 
but were brought together by a general interest in natural history. 
When the address began I discovered to my dismay that the 
lecturer’s idea of a subject suitable to such an audience was that 
of alternation of generations. So he proceeded to plod steadily 
through mosses, ferns, gymnosperms, and angiosperms, stating 
the homology of the reproductive organs of the various groups. 
It was obvious that to the lecturer alternation of generations 
was the kernel of the elementary botanical teaching which he 
had received as a preliminary to his medical studies. Clearly 
in his case a great opportunity for sound biological training 
had been missed by the teacher responsible for the course. 
Matters are possibly better now, but in my opinion the detailed 
complexities of alternation of generations must upset the proper 
balance of an elementary course for medical students, especially 
as this course is for most of them their first introduction 
to the study of living things. I have found by experience 
the advantage of practically eliminating alternation of gener¬ 
ations from an elementary course for medical students. 
The question of the proper content of a course for such students 
is however a large one, and requires, as Mr. T. G. Hill suggests, 
separate discussion. 
As to the immediate practical possibilities nothing of course 
can be done without the sympathy and goodwill of those in charge 
of elementary courses. No one desires, or has the power, to 
coerce those botanists who may think that changes in the 
direction indicated are retrograde. Some points however have been 
