MODERATOR-TOPICS
129
Preparing Students in Botany for Entering the Agricultural College or Any Other College.

For many years past, graduates of
high schools have become members of
my botany classes at the Agricultural
College. It may interest teachers to
know what I consider a few of the
weak points in the preparation of students in this subject. Considering the
time occupied, they attempt to cover
too many topics, consequently are thorough in nothing; structural botany,
morphology, seed plants, histology,
physiology, ecology, classification, lichens, mosses, liverworts, club mosses, ferns.
In teaching zoology Agassiz placed
very great stress on comparing two or
more animals in detail-in homology,
so much so that he named his collection a museum of comparative zoology.
Asa Gray placed equal importance
on the same kind of study applied to
plant morphology. Drill students in
the comparison of the parts of plants.
Be sure that your pupils know the following: Parts of a complete leaf, underground stems of quack grass, June
grass, false Solomon's seal, how to distinguish a stem from a leaf, a compound from a simple leaf, the morphology of a leaf of pea, rose, clover, lilac;
what is a potato, a spine of wild plum
or hawthorne, spine of a barberry,
leaves and branches of arbor vitae?
Wm. J. Beal.