Elementary Botanical Teaching. 247 
social life of plants. The field of ecology should thus be developed 
on a physiological basis. The whole of the range of topics briefly 
indicated here have direct bearings upon practical life, and no 
opportunity to illustrate these should be missed. Here we have the 
scientific bases of agriculture, of forestry, of the economic utilisation 
of waste lands, of the use of plants in coast protection, of every 
industry in which man grows plants, or employs plants which grow 
spontaneously, for specific purposes, for his own use or for the 
use of his animals. The scientific bases of these practical pursuits 
are at present left to the instruction of institutions of applied botany 
such as the schools of agriculture and forestry, which are not well 
adapted for such elementary and general instruction. The found¬ 
ations should be laid earlier in the students’ course and more 
broadly, and it is the business of botanists to lay them, because the 
roots of the scientific development of all these practical activities 
must lie in the scientific study of plants. 
Then we have genetics and its practical outlet in plant breeding' 
In one sense genetics may be regarded as a narrow and specialised 
study, but it is pre-eminently alive and concerned with life, and 
one of the duties of an elementary teacher of botany is to see that 
his students are properly instructed in its rudiments and understand 
its relation to the general body of biological knowledge, as for 
instance the relation of the development of inherited characters to 
the environment. Such an understanding would go far to widen 
the outlook of the plant-breeder and to save him from certain rather 
conspicuous defects which are apt to characterise his work. 
In such an elementary course as is here contemplated, com¬ 
parative morphology would have its place, but necessarily a far 
more restricted and less conspicuous place than it holds at present. 
It seems entirely out of proportion to go through each group of 
plants in detail and to enter into the minutiae of their structure and 
relationships while an immense number of the vital problems of 
plant life are neglected altogether. A brief but comprehensive 
survey of the plant kingdom would be required in order to illustrate 
the principle of the division of labour and the gradual adaptation of 
plants to land life. Morphological methods could be illustrated in 
detail from a few selected instances. Considerations of time and of 
proportion would necessitate a rigid selection of the available 
material. It has to be frankly recognised that the study of the 
detailed evolution of the plant world, which has acquired a fac¬ 
titious importance owing to the overwhelming effect on the 
