Correspondence. 
161 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
THE HEURISTIC METHOD IN THE TRAINING OF 
ELEMENTARY TEACHERS. 
To the Editor of the “ Nitw Phytoi.ogist.” 
Sir, 
Your readers will perhaps be interested to hear of ail experiment 
in botanical teaching suggested to me by Mr. Seward’s paper in the first 
number of the“Ni«;w PHYTOI.OGIST.” 
The experiment was made in my “Elementary Biology” Class of 
fourteen women students, in training at the Darlington Training College 
as teachers in Elementary Schools. Our time was limited to two hours a 
week for one year, and in these two hours the students had to be intro¬ 
duced to the principles of Plant and Animal Lite, tor with one exception 
none of them had any previous knowledge of Botaii}’ or Zoology (perhaps 
lioi altogether a disadvantage !). 
When I read Mr. Seward’s paper, it seemed to me that though few 
of us teachers have such a class as his at Cambridge, yet we might easily 
adapt his method to suit the needs of our own particular students. Bor 
instance, my students had not the time, material, or ability for actual 
research work, but—set to work on simple problems—they might find 
out a great deal for themselves, getting useful experience and training by 
the way, even if what they discovered was quite familiar to the big 
botanical world outside. 
Early in March, I divided the class into three sets, and to each set 
gave different work to do. Bor the benefit of other teachers I will 
describe the work rather fully, trusting that research students will not 
scorn our simple problems or forget our two hours’ limit! 
Set I. were to work on Trees and their buds. They were to find out 
and note the times of opening of different tree buds, to investigate the 
length of shoot derived from a single bud in different trees, etc., also to 
hunt for any possible relations between the branching of a tree and the 
veiuing of its leaves, and for any record of past seasons in the bark or 
wood of a tree. 
Set II. were to work on Seedlings,—cultivating various kinds in saw¬ 
dust, with a view to tracing what became of the various parts, noting 
especially the history of the .seed-leaves, the way in which they were 
withdrawn from the seed-coat, and the differences between these and 
the foliage leaves, etc. 
Set HI. were to make out the relation of Rain to the plant-world; 
to note how plants made most use of it; to discover in what ways it 
might prove harmful, and how the danger was guarded against; parti¬ 
cularly to notice how the position in which flowers and other parts were 
held was affected. 
The students themselves chose which set they would work in, and 
the work was done quite voluntarily. The members of a set worked 
separately for the most part, coming to head-quarters in practical diffi¬ 
culties. Some of the facts they could have got from books, but I 
discouraged references to these as destroying any originality in the work. 
At the beginning of June almost every student gave in a written 
account, with illustrative sketches of the observations she had herself 
made, and from these I chose three representatives who gave informal 
accounts of their observations for the benefit of the rest at the last 
class of the Session. These accounts occupied about fifteen minutes each, 
and were supplemented by observations of others who had worked in 
the same set. The show of seedlings in boxes was really exciting. Many 
kinds were tried and the following were found very usefulbeans, peas, 
lupins, vegetable marrows, tropaeolums, mustard, cress, buckwheat and 
maize. One bean-seedling grew to twenty-seven inches above the saw¬ 
dust, and showed flowers after about seven weeks’ growth. Great interest 
was aroused by the varying length of shoot from a single bud, the con¬ 
nections between branching and veiuing, and the position and movements 
of flowers as protection against rain. 
The greatest value of this method seems to me to lie in the actual 
