THE 
HEW PHYTOliOGIST. 
Vol. i., No. 6. 
June 25TH, 1902. 
TOWARDS AN IDEAL BOTANICAL CURRICULUM. 
Part I. 
^HE following rough notions have been put together in the hope 
of contributing something towards an end that all teachers of 
botany should have at heart—a clearer understanding of the best 
things to teach and of the best ways of teaching them. 
In a rapidly advancing science like our own, where the body of 
subject-matter is constantly, though gradually, shifting its outlines, 
where newer branches of knowledge are rapidly developing and 
tending to throw older ones into the shade, the question of what to 
teach and how to teach it is continually assuming new aspects. 
Occasional discussion between teachers on such points cannot fail 
to be of advantage all round. 
An apology must be offered at the outset—the writer has no 
knowledge whatever of technical pedagogy ; he is in the position of 
never having been taught how to teach, so that it is a case of 
struggling along by the light of nature, often, it is to be feared, a 
very feeble lantern indeed. Still the special problems that arise in 
having to deal with a special branch of science have to be faced by 
all whose business it is to teach it, and these lie largely outside the 
general principles of educational science. 
A botanical curriculum may be divided into two parts, which 
roughly correspond to school and college or university ; take the 
age of seventeen or eighteen as a dividing line between them. Of 
the teaching of botany to boys and girls under this age (to which 
this first article will be devoted) the present writer frankly confesses 
he has no experience whatever; he hopes that his ideas may be 
criticised and corrected by those who have. 
It may be laid down as an axiom that the main object to be 
aimed at in teaching botany to a child is to get him to learn to look 
at and handle plants intelligently, and to become accustomed to 
their forms and habits. It is a commonplace that the advantage of 
