THE 
HEW PHYTOIiOGIST. 
• r 
Vol. XVI, No. IO. 
December, 1917 . 
[Published December 20th, 1917.] 
THE RECONSTRUCTION 
OP 
ELEMENTARY BOTANICAL TEACHING. 
DISQUIETING feeling that all is not well with the position 
JT\. of academic botany in this country has been growing for 
several years in the minds of many botanists. The present 
memorandum is an attempt to analyse the grounds of this feeling, 
to define as far as possible what seems to be wrong and to seek a 
means of escape from the existing position, which is not only 
unsatisfactory, but even dangerous. 
When the subject is discussed among those who share the 
dissatisfaction referred to, different points of view, varying 
according to the predilections, temperaments, and experience of 
the speakers, are naturally reflected. But there seems to be this 
in common between those who are dissatisfied with existing 
conditions—a general impression of lack of quality and of vitality. 
Some attribute this lack to the diverse nature and wide range of 
the actual methods employed in the study of plants. The content 
of modern botany has become so vast that the student’s attention 
and energy are dissipated and he gets very little thorough knowledge 
of anything. On the other hand it has been held that one of the 
great virtues of the subject lies in these very qualities of variety 
and extent, which provide freshness of interest and breadth of 
outlook. The actual effects on the student of these qualities of 
modern botany are, however, conditioned by the manner in which 
the subject is presented to him, and it is widely felt that an 
excessive amount of time is devoted to teaching and learning the 
less vital parts of the subject. Other critics of the existing state 
of things attribute the lack of vitality and originality to the poor 
mental quality of the students themselves, others again to the very 
poor remuneration available to any save a few botanists and to the 
