Reconstruction of Elementary Botanical Teaching. 193 
environment, using environment in its widest sense, and including 
all the processes connected with the assimilation and utilisation by 
the plant of food materials, and the reactions in structure and in 
health of the plant to variations in degree and kind of the supply of 
these materials. This ecology would include the usual syn-ecology 
and also aut-ecology, which together with the study of the constitu¬ 
tion of the organism should form the basis of any future evolutionary 
teaching. 
It would he possible to conduct an elementary course on 
similar lines, if, instead of groups of plants, individual species 
formed the subject of study. The principle of the study of types 
might be extended and the physiology as well as the morphology 
and anatomy of the wallflower or sunflower, for example, could be 
taken from germination to seed-formation, the student sowing the 
seed and tending and studying the plants at all stages. In this way 
even an elementary student would be given an opportunity of 
realising the plant as a living and organised individual. 
Yours sincerely, 
JAMES SMALL. 
Bedford College, 
Regent’s Park, N.W.l. 
5th June, 1978. 
BOTANY AND THE TEACHING OF BIOLOGY. 
To the Editor of The New Phytologist. 
Dear Sir, 
Botanical Bolshevism ! If this be indeed an accurate 
description of the situation, may we not push the simile a 
little farther and seek to show that just as political Bolshevism 
arose as a reaction against intolerable conditions in the body 
politic so botanical Bolshevism has come into existence because 
it is actually a fact that “ all is not well with the position of 
academic botany in this country,” and that “ the existing position 
is not only unsatisfactory but even dangerous.” Grave disorders 
invite desperate remedies! Jesting apart, I feel that botanists 
generally are greatly indebted to you for initiating a discussion on 
“ The Reconstruction of Elementary Botanical Teaching ” in The 
New Phytologist, and for the opportunity which has beer 
afforded to ventilate all aspects of the subject. 
