Reconstruction of Elementary Botanical Teaching. 97 
required by some syllabus, and the average student, after taking a 
“ Pass” degree, is not merely unacquainted with many common 
plants, but as a rule is quite incapable of utilising a flora to 
the best advantage. This is the more to be deprecated since, in 
the fields of economic and applied Botany generally, the importance 
of critical forms, as distinct from the larger aggregates, is becoming 
more and more emphasised. 
It is therefore manifestly important that the contemplated 
curtailment of morphological studies should not be open to the 
same objection and result in a barren remnant of little educational 
value. The necessity of a sound morphological training cannot be 
too strongly emphasised, for, whether the student proposes ultimately 
to follow ecology, physiology, or applied Botany in its many 
branches, a thorough acquaintance with plant-structure is a 
necessity, not merely for the proper comprehension of the problems 
which nature affords, but also as a safeguard against viewing the 
plant as a mere aggregation of chemical and physical phenomena. 
The sterility of morphology and taxonomy is largely, if not 
entirely, an outcome of the fact that they are taught as ends in 
themselves and not as essential tools in the mental equipment of 
the student. As a consequence we find at the present day that 
many of those engaged in applied Botany are very inadequately 
trained in these respects. 
To a large extent the ecological view-point will, with its 
comprehensive vista, afford a corrective to this attitude, but 
the general introduction of ecology into the elementary course 
(especially in the first year) is not devoid of danger in the hands 
of inexperienced teachers. Many of the results of ecology are as 
yet necessarily tentative, and as such are not suited for presenta¬ 
tion, except to a mind already trained to critical consideration. 
The complex of factors involved in the relation of plants to their 
environment is only beginning to be unravelled and, as a consequence, 
there is a risk, well exemplified in current ecological literature, of 
regarding problems in the light of single factors, rather than as the 
resultant of the inter-action of many. Nowhere perhaps is this 
criticism more pertinent, or the inadequacy of our knowledge more 
patent, than in the domain of autecology, and therefore we regard 
with some misgiving the suggestion (Memorandum, p. 246) that the 
elementary course should embrace “ a treatment of the physiological 
life history of the individual plant.” 
With due recognition of these difficulties we fully support the 
