The Teaching of Elementary Botany 197 
which consequently includes all those places in which plants are at 
work, and students can work beside them. Hence, it excludes to 
the highest possible degree all the traditional laboratories into which 
living plants are rarely brought or in which they lead a sickly 
existence. Such rooms are as undesirable for students of plant life 
as they are for plants themselves, and there is no excuse for tolerating 
them longer than absolutely necessary. The difficulty of keeping the 
students at work in an environment of living plants throughout the 
course arises almost wholly from the position of the academic year. 
When the latter consists of four quarters, elementary courses in 
botany should begin in the spring and end with the approach of 
winter. Where the usual academic calendar, beginning in the 
autumn, is maintained, the sole adequate solution is the plant-house. 
Such a solution has proved entirely feasible in countries with a long 
severe winter, and should be much simpler in those with mild 
winters. 
Ideally, the plant-house should be a greenhouse so easily modified 
as to temperature and humidity as to be equally desirable for 
students and plants, but in practice well-constructed greenhouses 
have been found to serve very well. Where a greenhouse is available 
but laboratory space lacking, the addition of a roofed wing with 
adequate side-lighting has proved very satisfactory. The plant-house 
should be located in a well-planned garden, preferably with space 
available for individual student gardens, and as close to field and 
forest as possible. Wherever universities are situated in cities, the 
department of botany should be detached and located in the suburbs, 
always preferably on the experimental ground of the department of 
agriculture when there is one. While the plant-house should be 
provided with studies for the teachers, it has neither lecture-rooms 
nor class-rooms, as none are needed. All the work, organization and 
discussion as well as experiment, is done in the laboratory, whether 
it be plant-house, garden or field. Such a laboratory, once established, 
will prove to be equally valuable for advanced and graduate courses 
as well. 
The basic method of training the student to do all of his own 
work and thinking applies as well to questions of material and 
detailed methods of observation and experiment as to that of 
subject-matter. Mastery can be gained only by following each 
project throughout with true understanding, and it is essential that 
the student should select and obtain his materials. This may be done 
by the individual or by the group, though a combination of the two 
