2 
A Botanical Curriculum. 
different countries of the world—and the obtaining of a “ brilliant” 
degree in this way can he no test whatever of a real scientific 
education. Further, the system of teaching and examination which 
puts a premium on this kind of faculty, simply tends to destroy the 
natural powers of the average student who does not possess it, and to 
create in his mind a kind of dreary chaos of miscellaneous and imper¬ 
fectly assimilated information, so that—to put the matter on its lowest 
level—he would never get a degree at all if it were not for the dis¬ 
gracefully low pass standard which obtains in certain degree- 
examinations. If then it be admitted—and it can hardly be denied— 
that it is impossible to teach properly the whole subject-matter of 
modern botany, or of any other branch of science, during the period 
of the curriculum (say two years) of the advanced student, the 
question at once arises, how is the subject-matter to be limited. 
The answer seems to be that, given a sound elementary training of 
the sort indicated in the last article, it does not much matter what 
s taught afterwards, provided it is taught on the right lines and by 
a thoroughly competent person. Supposing a man to have a good 
elementary knowledge of the outlines of his subject, he may be 
afterwards trained in some branch of Plant-Physiology, in part of 
Morphology, or of Systematic Botany, and may become a sound 
botanist in one of these fields; it is out of the question that he can 
become so in all of them. 
Before proceeding to discuss the methods of training more in 
detail, it will be well to consider a practical objection which may be 
raised at this point. It may be urged, and with some force, that 
we are leaving out of account the ordinary object with which a man 
or woman enters for a science degree, the desire to qualify him or 
herself for the teaching profession. No doubt, it may be said, your 
scientific investigator is best taught in the way you indicate, but 
how shall it profit a science-master in a secondary school to have 
been trained as an accomplished systematise or as an expert in the 
physiological chemistry of plants, with only the barest knowledge 
of the general subject he will have to teach to his boys. The lines 
on which we should answer such an objection would be somewhat 
as follows. A really good elementary course in botany (and the 
same applies to any branch of science) should give the intelligent 
student such a vital idea of the ground work of his subject that he 
could readily build up his knowledge in any direction he chose. A 
man who after taking his degree sets out to teach a branch of 
science must necessarily, to some extent, shape the whole matter 
