6 The Examination of a Witness. 
W. My knowledge is extremely limited; “I never even 
lectured upon it,” or to be accurate, I never gave a course of 
lectures on Ecology. I have, however, gleaned one fact from a 
perusal of ecological iterature; as Huxley said of holastic 
philosophy, “it is surrounded by a dense thicket cf thorny logo¬ 
machies, and obscured by the dust-clouds of a barbarous and perplex¬ 
ing terminology.” Ecology has this in common with palaeobotany ; it 
has attracted several botanists who formerly devoted themselves to 
other fields of activity. It may be that ecologists, unlike palaeo- 
botanists, have chosen the narrow path. Most teachers, I suppose, 
endeavour to explain to their students the nature of the problems 
with which the ecologist is concerned, and encourage them to study 
the social life of plants in different habitats. On the other hand 
it would seem that the solution of ecological problems is a task 
demanding a thorough training in general botany, to say nothing 
of ancillary subjects. Ecology, a subject concerned with the 
relation of plants to their habitats, aims at solving some of the 
most fundamental questions in biology and requires, more than 
most branches of botany, on the part of those who study it in the 
right spirit a very wide and intimate acquaintance with plant 
physiology and anatomy. It is not, in my opinion, a subject which 
can profitably be included, except in the most general way, in an 
elementary course. A statement of the aims of the ecologist is 
desirable and stimulating, and opportunities should be seized of 
illustrating the bearing of facts or phenomena met with in the 
laboratory on ecological problems, but a course of elementary 
instruction in which ecology bulks largely must, I venture to think, 
be deficient in the essentials of a firm botanical foundation. 
T. F. W. M. Is it then your view that existing methods are 
satisfactory and that you fail to appreciate the gravity of the present 
state of things even after our solemn warning ? 
W. No teacher worthy of consideration is thoroughly satisfied 
with his methods. The proposals which you, Sirs, have made are 
many of them sound, if I may say so without impertinence, but 
there are practical difficulties only too familiar to many botanists 
who have had prolonged experience of elementary teaching. May 
one hope that on a future occasion you will see fit to give weaker 
brethren some advice, based on your own experience, how best to 
meet some of the difficulties ? One of the difficulties is limited 
time, and another is the large size of some elementary classes. The 
question is, what subjects are most important to a beginner, and 
