146 “ Handling Evidence of Growth and Change 
However this may be, if life and growth are to become the 
central facts of our teaching, then the student must be given the 
opportunity op handling the evidence of growth and change. He 
should see not only the winter bud, but side by side with it the 
expanding twig ; not merely the mature storage organ but stages 
in its formation and sprouting. Flowers should be seen opening, 
fruits forming and ripening. The secondary growth of a twig 
should be illustrated by comparable material taken at various 
stated times of year, so that the student can see the process for 
himself—can see what kind of wood is formed in spring and in 
autumn, and can observe the storage and mobilisation of reserves, 
which is of more importance than the minute histology of the 
elements. 
1 am fully alive to the difficulties which confront anyone who 
attempts to make the necessary changes under existing conditions, 
with understaffed departments, overcrowded laboratories and un¬ 
wieldy medical classes. Yet the attempt must be persisted in. Some 
modification of the first M.B. courses is a particularly urgent 
matter of policy in face of the movement to cut botany out of the 
medical curriculum altogether. The principles of general biology 
should be the central theme; in the selection of material and 
illustrations utility should be considered; and, as in all university 
courses, the treatment should be such as to introduce the student 
to scientific method, train him to observe accurately, honestly and 
independently, and to draw sound conclusions. 
Thus a large place must obviously be given to the elementary 
general physiology of plant life, including reproduction, heredity 
and variation, and the influence of environment on form and 
behaviour; and enough structure and external morphology must 
be included to illustrate correlation with function and the laws of 
growth. 
Utility demands that attention be given to plant products 
of immediate importance to human health. One may mention for 
consideration the food reserves in seeds, fruits, and other food 
products ; the distribution of vitamines; malting of barley, and 
alcoholic fermentation ; nature and properties of vegetable fibres; 
important bacterial processes; as well as the principles of plant 
pathology. 
As regards method of treatment, although I realise that with 
large classes the practical course must be to a great extent merely 
illustrative, I feel strongly that the work most not wholly consist of 
