INTRODUCTION.* 
THE science of botany should be learned as far as possible 
observationally. The use of a text-book is only to guide the 
learner, who should not depend implicitly on any statement 
which is readily capable of. verification. 
In class-work every pupil should be furnished with a 
specimen of the plant or plants required. The difficulty of 
providing specimens for a class is inconsiderable if the pupils 
themselves undertake the work. When it has been ascer- 
tained what plants are available—and this depends, of course, 
very much on the season of the year as well as on the locality 
—then two or three of the class may be told off to provide all 
the specimens required for the next lesson. There is laid 
down a certain definite order of types to be examined, chiefly 
because by doing so the subject of classification is afterwards 
more easily taken up. In practice it is not easy to follow the 
specified order closely, on account of the greater or less diffi- 
culty of obtaining the required specimens at certain times of 
the year; but it will be found advisable to keep as near it as 
possible. , 
A most unportant feature in teaching botany is a constant 
use of class-exercises. The schedule system so extensively 
adopted at one time has been discarded as too limited in 
scope. It is found that when once pupils get into the way of 
using forms of the kind it is a difficult matter to get them to 
leave it. But suitable exercises are very easily obtained. As 
soon as a plant has been carefully gone over in detail and de- 
scribed by the class, some nearly-allied plant may be given to 
them, and they may be asked to examine and describe it 
themselves, noting all the structural features in which it 
agrees with and differs from that first described. Suppose, for 
example, that the creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens) be 
the plant gone over in class, then one of the other common 
species (¢.g., R. plebewus, R. lappaceus, ov £. vivularis) should 
* Especially intended for teachers. 
