The Teaching of Elementary Botany 193 
that the important things in teaching are the intangible values. This 
takes teaching out of the realm of science into that of faith, and 
needs no further consideration. Unexpected examinations are 
especially helpful to the teacher who is impressed by the ease and 
rapidity with which ground is covered by the aid of lecture, or text¬ 
book, and demonstration. Ease and rapidity are not conditions that 
accompany vigorous mental growth, as can be demonstrated by the 
unexpected, or, better still, the delayed examination. The slighter 
the stimulus the less the response. With an organ so little used as 
the mind the stimuli must be strong and continuous or periodic if 
they are to produce permanent results. Repeated experiments have 
proved that lecture, text-book and demonstration do not produce 
stimuli of this quality. 
Even unexpected examinations are not capable of furnishing 
evidence as to results other than those obtained by the memory, 
except where it is possible to state a problem on paper, as with a 
problem in geometry. Adequate tests of mental development can 
only be made by means of practical and applied examinations, and, 
best of all, by the assignment of observations and experiments in 
which all of the work is done by the student, from organizing his 
plans and obtaining materials to carrying the plans through success¬ 
fully and drawing the proper conclusions. It is obvious that this is 
the method of scientific research, and equally obvious that teaching 
carried on in this manner needs no set examinations or tests. Every 
task is a problem that demands the student's best efforts in organ¬ 
izing, observing, experimenting, thinking and correlating. No 
examination of the traditional sort that may be given can have a 
tithe of the value in his mental development that is exerted by a 
new problem that demands a mastery of the preceding one for its 
solution. In this fundamental respect the process-inquiry method is 
not merely identical with that of scientific research, but it also 
accurately reflects life itself with its constant pressure of problems. 
The similarity runs throughout, and nowhere is this similarity closer 
than in the fact that contacts, like blunders, must be personal and 
repeated to bring usable knowledge. However, while properly 
graduated series of problems bring their own tests of development 
and achievement, knowledge of the exact stages must be constantly 
available to both teacher and student. This involves the measure¬ 
ment of the learning processes, as discussed later. 
The content of general courses in biological science has been 
criticized more frequently than the method, chiefly because its 
Phyt. XXII. 4. 
13 
