Reconstruction of Elementary Botanical Teaching. 55 
brought out in the discussion which are of interest in connexion 
with practical measures. It has seemed to the writer for some 
time that most elementary courses (including those which he lias 
given) are too static in character. Professor Tlioday has put this 
point very clearly in the demand that students should have the 
“ opportunity of handling the evidence of growth and change.” 
This I would tentatively suggest might be combined with Mr. 
Hiley’s proposal of an intensive study of a small number of 
types, which could he grown in, or brought into, the laboratory 
in all stages, and studied from the morphological, physiological and 
ecological aspects. Such types as sunflower, wheat, an arborescent 
type, and a type chosen especially with an eye to the study of its 
ecological relations might be suggested. Such types would enable 
one to bring out agricultural and some of the other economic 
aspects of the subject. 
There is a further point to which reference may be made. 
The problem of the content of the primary academic course in 
botany is not the same in all Universities. There are in the 
main two types of elementary academic courses. On the one hand 
we have the condition, as at Cambridge, where the degree course 
and the primary course are one and the same. On the other hand 
we have the condition, as at London, where the degree course is 
in two parts, the primary or “ Intermediate Science ” course and 
the more advanced “ Pass 13.Sc.” courses. The “ Intermediate 
Science ” course is only a short one, but it is attended not only by 
degree students but also by students, such as those of physics and 
chemistry, who are not proceeding to a degree in botany. For the 
last class of students this course is often the only biological 
training which they will receive ; it is therefore of especial import¬ 
ance that the course should be so designed as to bring before them 
the most vital aspects of the subject. In connexion with this 
“ Intermediate Science” course the question is raised as to whether 
it should not be mainly confined to a study of seed-plants. The 
idea that in a restricted course of this kind it is necessary to give 
the student a bird’s-eye view of the vegetable kingdom by studying 
in detail types of algae, fungi, liverworts, mosses, ferns, etc., 
should, I suggest, be given up. Such a survey, if too great 
insistence is not laid upon comparative morphology with its 
concomitant elaboration of structural detail, is of course eminently 
desirable and would be given later as a part of the degree course. 
But in a short one year course of the “ Intermediate ” type such a 
