PREFACE. 
1 
Question . Have you ever turned your attention at all to the 
possibility of teaching Botany to boys in classes at school ? 
Answer. I have thought that it might be done very easily; 
that this deficiency might be easily remedied. 
Q. What are your ideas on the subject? 
A. My own ideas are chiefly drawn from the experience of 
my father-in-law, the late Prof. Henslow, Professor of Botany 
at Cambridge. He introduced Botany into one of the lowest 
possible class of schools—that of village laborers’ children in a 
remote part of Suffolk. 
Q. Perhaps you will have the goodness to tell us the system 
he pursued? 
A. It was an entirely voluntary system. He offered to en¬ 
roll the school-children in a class to be taught Botany once a 
week. The number of children in the class was limited, I think, 
to forty-two. As his parish contained only one thousand in¬ 
habitants, there never were, I suppose, the full forty-two chil¬ 
dren in the class; their ages varied from about eight years old 
to about fourteen or fifteen. The class mostly consisted of 
girls. ... He required that, before they were enrolled in the 
class, they should be able to spell a few elementary botanical 
terms, including some of the most difficult to spell, and those 
that were the most essential to begin with. Those who brought 
proof that they could do this were put into the third class; then 
they were taught once a week, by himself generally, for an hour 
or an hour and a half, sometimes for two hours (for they were 
exceedingly fond of it). 
Q. Did he use to take them out in the country, or was it 
simply lessons in the school? 
A. He left them to collect for themselves; but he visited 
his parish daily, when the children used to come up to him, 
and bring the plants they had collected; so that the lessons 
went on all the week round. There was only one day in the 
week on which definite instruction was given to the class; but 
on Sunday afternoon he used to allow the senior class, and 
those who got marks at the examinations, to attend at his 
house. . . . 
Q. Did he find any difficulty in teaching this subject in class ? 
