loo A Suggestion for an Honours Course. 
comparative ignorance of the methods and aims of two-thirds of 
botany ? 
The alternative I have in mind may be explained by the 
following outline of a syllabus. The preliminary course should be 
as general as possible, covering more physiology and ecology than 
is usual at present, but containing also a good general survey of the 
main groups of plants and their inter-relationships. It should be 
separate from the course for the pass degree, which has a totally 
distinct object, and if this is conceded, the morphological basis 
may be retained in the preliminary course. 
The second and more important part of the course should 
consist primarily of a very thorough and special study of a small 
number of types, say four, taken from different phylogenetic or 
ecological groups. All, or nearly all of these must be British 
plants which the student can study in situ. He should himself 
bring specimens into the laboratory, pickle what is necessary, grow 
what can be grown, perform physiological experiments on 
them, and gain as thorough a knowledge of them, 
morphological, physiological, ecological and phylogenetic, as is 
possible in the time. He will need to know the more important 
original papers which bear on the subject, and text-books will take 
their proper place as books of reference and bibliographies. The 
student will be encouraged to follow those lines of investigation 
which are peculiarly suggested by each type, but he should be 
expected to make quantitative determinations of assimilation, 
respiration and transpiration on at least some of his types. 
I do not want to labour the advantages of this system, but I 
hope your readers will consider it as a possible method of 
specialising and at the same time covering more branches of 
botanical science than is usual at the present time. A special 
point which may be advanced in its favour is that students who 
intend to apply their knowledge of botany to forestry, agriculture 
or the like, can partly select as their types species which will be of 
eventual interest to them as crops, weeds or parasites. 
In addition to his types each student should have to take three 
or more special subjects chosen from a list including plant 
metabolism, plant movement, ecology, genetics, cytology, paleo¬ 
botany, history of botany, biochemistry, and perhaps the larger 
groups, Fungi, Algae, Bryophyta, etc. His knowledge of these 
subjects could be examined in the ordinary way and a higher quality 
might be expected as further specialisation is allowed. 
