t48 Advisory Council — and other things. 
the work in question, i.e., biochemistry, elementary botany, etc., 
whose function it would be to make recommendations to those 
who draw up syllabuses, and appoint examiners in the corresponding 
subjects. This would be a more satisfactory way of bridging the 
existing gulf between teaching and examining than the system 
of “ internal ” examinations with “external ” examiners—a condition 
of affairs subject to abuse, and which may he reduced to a farce. 
(2) No laboratory should he considered efficient, or recognised 
by a University, which does not possess a garden and a greenhouse, 
and, if possible, an experimental station. It has long seemed to me 
anomalous that in any institution supposed to he for the study of 
plants, work on the living plant is next to, and in most cases quite 
impossible! All that is offered, alike to the research worker and 
the elementary student, is a profusion of the dead bodies of plants, 
and these usually cut up into inch pieces, with more or less 
distorted structure. Ecology ’cannot adequately he taught with¬ 
out frequent excursions, and if possible periodic visits to an 
experimental station. Could not the Government be petitioned to 
recognise the great importance of science teaching by granting free 
travel for genuine ecological work ? Field work should not he 
regarded as a sort of extra, nor the poorly paid assistants expected 
not only to give over-time work, but to pay their own expenses. 
(3) Research on the lines of “ the study of plants as living 
organisms ” should he encouraged, since in the long run research 
is the pioneer of teaching. At present work of this kind simply 
does not pay; results are far more quickly achieved by rushing 
material through the microtome, and drawing a few of the sections 
with an Abbe Camera, and moreover are far less costly in time and 
money, to say nothing of brain power. More stress might well he 
laid on the quality as well as the quantity of research produced. 
(4) Following from this, and certainly not least in any scheme 
of reform comes the question of the personality of the teacher. 
You say that some critics “ attribute the lack of vitality and 
originality to the poor mental quality of the students.” This is 
somewhat naive, since it is quite possible for the students to 
attribute the same lack to the poor mental quality of the lecturers ! 
Truly “morphological botany in the hands of a teacher of person¬ 
ality and vigour can he made interesting and a real instrument of 
education,” hut can those desirable results be achieved in any 
subject under any scheme by teachers not endowed with those 
qualities ? A botanist known to all your readers once said to me, 
