134 Reviews 
a clear comprehension of the nature and significance of the structural features 
of plants. 
It would probably be a good thing to attack the question of adaptation a 
little more directly, even in an elementary book. The mode of exposition 
adopted by the authors will still, we fear, not suffice to give students clear ideas 
of the way in which the useful characters and powers we see in plants can 
originate, and the ways in which they almost certainly do not originate, though 
the actual statements about variation and heredity and the effect of conditions 
are clear, accurate and judicious enough 1 . The “teleological atmosphere” is 
hard to escape from altogether, but several recent American writers of ele¬ 
mentary text-books have been very successful* in freeing their statements 
from it, for instance Dr J. G. Coulter in his Plant Life and Plant Uses (1913), 
Dr Transeau in Science of Plant Life (1919)—both admirable “high school 
texts”—and Dr Gager in Fundamentals of Botany (1916), which is perhaps 
better known in this country. None of these authors has however attempted 
the direct exposition we have in mind. Something rather more constructive 
is wanted. Prof. Small boldly adopts the theory of epharmosis as a factor of 
the first importance, but the justification of this course may well be questioned. 
Prof. Jones’ and Dr Rayner’s Text-Book of Plant Biology has rather a 
different aim. The authors point out in their preface that many students of 
elementary botany leave the subject before they have had an opportunity 
of realising its wider biological aspects, and thus miss what is often their 
only opportunity of acquiring that grasp of biological principles which is 
most desirable in the future citizen. They have therefore attempted to design 
an elementary course which will serve as an introduction to scientific method 
and enable a student to acquire an understanding of the relation of plant life 
to general biological knowledge. 
In endeavouring to carry out these aims the authors have departed rather 
widely from the subject-matter of the ordinary elementary course, and though 
their mode of approach to the subject is exceedingly admirable in itself this 
fact will, we fear, tend to militate against the wide adoption of their book 
as a “text-book for the use of the senior classes in schools and junior classes 
of the University.” One of the greatest obstacles to the improvement of ele¬ 
mentary teaching is the conservatism of tradition, and the necessity under 
which most teachers labour of adapting their teaching to fixed examination 
syllabuses. We want a great deal more experiment in different methods of 
treatment of the subject, but it is very difficult to obtain under existing con¬ 
ditions. Meanwhile the multiplication of University departments in which the 
head is comparatively young, anxious to try new experiments in teaching, 
and with a nearly free hand, is all to the good. 
The book under review is divided into three Parts, the first devoted to 
the Plant as a Machine, the second to Reproduction and the third to the Plant 
in Relation to the Outside World. Part I occupies nearly half the book, and 
contains a fairly comprehensive account of respiration, nutrition and the water 
relation, the treatment being essentially “biological” throughout. To each 
chapter there are added directions for appropriate practical work in illustration 
1 With the exception of one sentence (p. 378) which seems to imply that effective 
selection might take place within a pure line, though it has been stated above that 
this is not the case. 
