Reconstruction of Elementary Botanical Teaching. 199 
and tissues forms the firm foundation of all conceptions about 
them. 
This does not mean that I propose that there should be no 
physiology in an elementary course, but that it should be 
subservient to anatomy, microscopic study and morphology, because 
the last three give the permanent stable bricks and mortar which 
the first uses. The same bricks can be rebuilt in a thousand 
different ways, as the students ambitions rise; without any solid 
bricks his structures and edifices will be flimsy indeed. 
In a more elaborate form the elementary course of botany 
should teach the student this:—Plants, like animals, are an 
expression of that mysterious, complex, and intricate essence we 
call life; we can only study (plant) life through its physical 
presentations in terms of complexes of chemical molecules. These 
meet our eyes compacted into various cell tissues and organs, of 
which the construction is specifically stable enough for our crude 
purposes to look on as fixed and definite. We must hold on to the 
definite details we can see and measure to get any firm foundation 
for our ideas at all. Life makes these cells and organs as its tools. 
When we know the details of the material expressions of that 
fantastically elusive thing called life, we may be able to catch it at 
some of its dodges, otherwise we will be in a perpetual fog and life 
will laugh at us. It is doing so probably in any case, but youth is 
serious and should not be told this. 
Pal^eobotanical Department, 
University College, London. 
