University of the State of New York
High School Department
Bulletin 13 May 1901
New York State Science Teachers Association
PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIFTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Held at University of Rochester, Rochester, 28-29 December 1900

HOW SHALL A YOUNG PERSON STUDY BOTANY?
(A sequel to the New botany printed in 1879)
BY PROF. W. J. BEAL, MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
While studying four years in the classical course at the
University of Michigan, and coming under the instruction of
Alexander Winchell, I was seized with a desire for more knowledge of natural history. It was two years later, in April 1861,
that I went to Harvard to study under the guidance of Agassiz
and Gray. In those days the gross anatomy, morphology and the
classification of animals and plants were about all that received
much attention.
Agassiz said he was glad to see me there and asked a few
questions, observing that, "You must make up your mind to be
a poor man all your life if you become a naturalist. With my
mode of treatment students are about sure to become discouraged at first. I shall try your patience. You have read books,
but have not studied the subjects themselves. If you study with
me, you must not look at a book for some time, for several months.
You must learn to see, to observe for yourself. After students
get started once in this way, the longer they study here the bet-
ter they like it, and the more reluctant they are to leave." After
some more questions, he handed me half a dozen dead sea-urchins,
and left me with the remark: "I want you to see what you can
make of them, and in a day or two I will see how you get along."
He assigned me a table in the laboratory, where ten or a dozen
other special students were at work, the floor being largely covered by cords of shallow wooden boxes set tightly over each
other, containing various kinds of specimens. This was a queer
way to study-six dry specimens about as large as so many

Baldwin apples and no books! I looked them over and over, part
of the time using a small hand lens. I was glad when night
came, for it seemed as though I had learned all there was to be
learned of sea-urchins. I broke them to pieces and made some
drawings. The next day the professor called with a smile, saying,
"Well, Mr. Beal, what have you seen?" He glanced at the drawings, and I told him what I had done. He gave me a very few
general hints of what to look for, and a few names of the parts,
noticing some mistakes, but made no corrections.
I supposed all of one day spent on these specimens certainly
was enough. Not so; I was to study them longer. Thus he
called every day for about five minutes during a period of three
weeks, hearing what I had to say till I made some mistake,
when he uniformly turned on his heel and left me, saying, "You
are wrong." I was surprised at my own work-surprised to
find at the end of the three weeks, that I was discovering some-
thing new every day. You must understand that, during this
time, I had only two lectures a week on other subjects, devoting
all the rest of the time to sea-urchins. After this I dissected
specimens which had been in alcohol, and occasionally went to
Chelsea beach to get fresh, living specimens, which I examined
while in motion. I began to learn to see sea-urchins, and it made
little difference to me whether it was daylight or dark, whether
the specimens were before me or not; visions of sea-urchins in all
their details were all the time before me.
In a similar manner one species of star fish was examined,
its examination occupying a week or so. Agassiz says: "These two animals, the sea-urchin (a flattened sphere) and the starfish
(with five rays or arms), are composed of similar parts arranged
in a similar manner. Learn how it is." The comparison occupied
several days. The next specimen was a spatangoid, an animal
somewhat different from either of the others. "Now homologize
these three." Then a third and a fourth specimen were given me,
differing from the others in appearance; and I was told again:
"Compare. It is easy to observe isolated parts-any one can
soon learn to do that; but, when you compare two objects, you

take a step in philosophy." In one case I was asked to make a
paper model of a coral, to illustrate my idea of the hard portions.
Corals were compared with sea-urchins and starfishes. This work
occupied me for more than two months, and during all this time
Agassiz never corrected a mistake, but kept me working till I
found out for myself. Perhaps it was three months before I
was permitted to see books on these subjects, but at that time
their contents were carefully read and fully understood. Agassiz
often said: "Study specimens and refer to books, and not the
reverse, as is usually done. Textbook knowledge about nature
does not amount to anything; it is a very poor basis of culture."
It has seemed to me that the work with Agassiz helped me
more than that of any other teacher with whom I ever came in
contact, and yet no teacher ever told me so little. I learned to
observe and learned to rely on myself. At that time we supposed
that this kind of work was beginning the study of zoology in
the right way, but in these days, some people are trying to make
a new thing out of it, by calling it nature study. Nature study
is seeing the things which one looks at, and the drawing of
proper conclusions from what is seen. In this connection it may
be well to keep in mind Dr Goodale's definition of botany. " Bot-
any attempts to answer all reasonable questions about plants."
I spent months studying asters, goldenrods, sedges and other
plants in the laboratory with Dr Asa Gray, who was always on
the alert to keep me on the right track and point out the mis-
takes at once, saying, "It isn't worth while to pursue a subject
when you have got off the right track."
For at least half a school year of daily work in beginning
botany, I require all students to pursue the plan of studying
plants and not books. By all devices, I seek to get the results
of the combined observations of all members of the class before
I tell them what I think, or before they study books on the topic.
It makes no difference what grade of a high school or what class
in a college they belong to, the process is the same. With young
pupils and undergraduates, I do not carry out Agassiz's plan to
the full extent, but keep it constantly in mind, tempering the
severity of the breeze to the shorn lambs.

 After the students have learned well how to see for themselves by practicing for 18 or 20 weeks, in succeeding terms, I
am by no means so particular to adhere to this plan.
In many of our elementary textbooks in these times-and they
are numerous and multiplying rapidly-authors recommend the
study of what they call types. For example, they advise studying one spirogyra, one vaucheria, one mucor, one puccinia, one
ascomycete, one marchantia, one polytrichum, and so on through,
from low protococcus to one of the highest-the dandelion. In
pursuing this plan, my experience convinces me that most students fail to see the connection and lose interest in passing from
one isolated family or class to another. It may be well enough
to study types, but pupils should not fail to study in that connection a considerable number of species that are somewhat nearly
related, and by this means have the benefit of comparing similar
objects. After learning the structure of one violet, it is better
to examine the structure of at least 10 other species than to spend
the same time studying a single crowfoot, a chickweed, a geranium, a spiraea, a rose, a mint, a phlox, a mallow, a dandelion, a
fern; though each of these may be studied at other times in connection with allied forms.
25 years ago, we often met teachers in Michigan who re-
quired their pupils to begin botany by getting lessons from a
textbook, where they saw some pictures and diagrams, instead
of plants or some of their parts. This was the practice, specially
in winter, when it was declared no specimens were to be obtained. I am sorry to say that such persons in the back districts are still retained as teachers. Perhaps I ought not to mention this matter in New York; but it is not three years since I
met one of your teachers, occupying a high place, who followed
the book lesson plan, with little or no use of specimens. Is it
possible that he was unable to procure large seeds of some
common plants and set his pupils to observing, experimenting
with, and growing them in the classroom? Had he not collected many dry seeds, fruits, and racemes in summer and kept
them in bunches or in loose sacks hung on the nails in the rafters of an attic till wanted in winter? The fact appears not to

have entered his head, that he could secure, each in its season,
a great assortment in quantity of the soft fruits and buds of
flowers-that he could keep these in jars in 2% of formalin till
wanted. They will retain their shape and part of their color
very well, and the odor of formalin disappears after washing in
water for a few minutes. True, we can not collect roses from
a New York garden in January, nor maple blossoms in February,
but our trees and shrubs in their winter garb furnish excellent
lessons to employ pupils profitably for many weeks of winter,
and this all comes within the scope of botany, just as much as
if we examined flowers in May or June. By the roadside, in the
swamp, in the woods or the front yard, are hundreds of branches
of a hundred kinds of woody plants, the buds of which are formed
in summer and resting in winter, some of them waiting to be
studied by inquisitive pupils. The branches have pith, wood
and bark, to say nothing of the delicate contents of buds.
Students can pursue the following order with branches of our
elms and find plenty to do.

1 Note general characteristics of branches, including the arrangement of buds and the abortive stem above the upper bud.
2 Lenticels, corky ridges, and the bark.
3 Leaf scars, their position, shape, structure.
4 Scars left by the bud scales, and minute buds in their axils.
5 Scars left by some of the dying buds.
6 The buds 1) those containing a stem and leaves,
                       2) those containing flowers.
The longer I teach, the less I lecture my students, and the
talks that are given are mostly regarding things which the
students have previously examined. As a rule, I have to keep
cautioning our instructors not to lecture so much. I have had
some who apparently delighted to show their wisdom and would
spend more than half the laboratory hour in telling students
what they should attempt to discover for themselves or in giving other information. Students are inclined to like this plan,
as it is so much easier and quicker to get information this way

they are pursuing the study to learn how to work rather than
to acquire information.
In 1869 I gave members of the junior class in Chicago university some lectures on zoology; I was particular to tell them
about the structure of the heart, and the circulation of the blood.
Two of the class afterward dissected a dog that was good for
nothing else. They wondered what those broad things were at
the large end of the heart, and were going to cut them off and
throw them away, not mistrusting that these were the auricles
about which I had told them the day before. In 1885 I gave to
an advanced class five illustrated lectures on the pollination of
flowers. After the course, I asked questions and made the following record in my notebook. "As far as the lectures are concerned, many points were imperfectly understood, erroneous
notions were entertained. The five lectures were to a great ex-
tent a loss of time, which could have been spent to better ad-
vantage by a careful study of the flowers of several living
species."
Better than lectures I have found the following, not omitting
laboratory work. I teach agricultural students something concerning grasses, weeds, parasitic fungi, forestry, plant physiology.
After they have done some laboratory work, students are sup-
plied with duplicate books, bulletins, or separates, which treat
specially of the subject in hand. These are read by each one
during the laboratory hours, and the students take their time for
making good notes. These books and bulletins are a part of the
laboratory equipment. For example, beginners study seeds and
seedlings of peas and beans for four hours, making some notes and
drawings, after which I give each a copy of my bulletin, no. 1,
on elementary science, which treats of the same kinds of seeds
and seedlings. Copies of this bulletin are on the table at this
meeting. Wheat and buckwheat are studied in the same manner, and later seeds and seedlings of timothy and clover, each
time finishing up with a bulletin. I can conceive no more desirable method than to have the whole series of topics which


are studied during a term, written up and illustrated in this
manner, that the text and cuts may not be seen till considerable
attention has been given to the objects. In case a book is furnished to a beginner, while he has specimens, he is almost certain to use it as freely as a student would use the translation
of a German or Latin text which he is trying to translate.
In Michigan, many persons preparing for examinations with a
view to securing certificates, cram in botany and zoology, physics
and chemistry, instead of making original observations or of
making the experiments for themselves. Not long ago our state
superintendent of public instruction introduced a fine scheme
for a part of his examinations in botany. Those who were trying
for state certificates, were given some questions to be answered in
writing on the usual plan, while another part of the examination
consisted in using a stage microscope with paper and pencil and
no books to give the result of their observations concerning some
fresh plants placed in their hands. Such questions are most admirable, and are fair, but in this case most of them were un-
answered, showing that the candidates were destitute of the most
important part of the preparation. Some of them failed to make
a passing record. In examining candidates to enter an advanced
class, I invariably make considerable use of laboratory work and
less of oral quizzes.
Students should keep the following four points constantly be-
fore them to aid in arriving at correct conclusions.

1 Where possible, examine many specimens of one species.
2 Pay considerable attention to counting and measuring and
finding the relative sizes of the parts studied.
3 Carefully compare homologous parts of allied species.
4 Study plants of any species in all stages of development.

As we must expect, beginners are often at a loss to know how
to express themselves clearly and fully, specially in writing descriptions of plants or parts of plants that they have never seen
before. Their notes are very often too meager. After all have
tried and done the best they can, I show them what I can do,

or permit them to copy an apt description from some book or
from a blackboard. After repeating this process for several
times, they soon begin to acquire considerable skill in description.
I like to keep a syllabus of the course on the blackboard or to
have it on a chart hung before the class.
Many textbooks contain in the introduction or in some of the
early chapters a lengthy account of the classification of the sub-
jects treated in later chapters. Here they attempt to teach classification before the beginner has acquired a knowledge of facts as
a basis sufficient to comprehend the text. I wish to call your attention to a notable exception to this rule in a First book of zoology
by E. S. Morse, published more than 25 years ago, before some
of you were born. The plan is admirable. The author speaks to
his pupils by text, and excellent illustrations of snails, clams,
insects, centipedes and lobsters, and in the last part of the book,
where you would least expect to find it, he inserts a few chapters
concerning natural groups. Here we have the natural order of
work; a multitude of facts are given before the author attempts
to generalize or classify.
What I term beginning botany, is expected to continue daily
for 18 or 20 weeks, devoting an hour and a half a day to the
laboratory, with sections containing each 25 to 30 persons. Each
student is furnished with a stage microscope, with two needles
in handles, a pair of forceps and usually a small knife. During
this period the teacher must see:
1) That he learns to use these instruments to best advantage,
correctly. 2) That he learns to draw diagrams, vertical and cross-
sections, rather than artistic views. 3) To make good and full
notes. 4) To learn something about plants.
In certain cases, I find it very instructive to require students
to make models out of paper or out of large rutabagas or potatoes.
Certainly in no course should a student attempt to study everything pertaining to botany. We must select with reference to
that which is most suitable for students that we teach and the
apparatus that is available. We select what will give the best

training, and lastly that which will give the most useful information. If all were intending to pursue the study of medicine, or
of mechanical engineering or of agriculture, or of horticulture,
the fact might influence more or less the topics to be selected,
but the pupils in most schools will pursue a great variety of callings after completing a course, or before that time. We must
keep in mind all the time that " what a man can do is more important than what he knows."
For acquiring the power of daily observation, there can be
nothing better than the study of the gross anatomy of plants,
and for cultivating the judgment, plant morphology is unsurpassed, specially where frequent comparisons are insisted on.
While these two lines of work are kept at the front, from the first
lesson on the first day and all through the course, I encourage
every student not to forget to ask himself the question, "Why
and how?" This will' call in more or less physiology, oecology,
description and classification or relationship. Under oecology
specially these questions are always interesting: why plants are
not all found in the same region, why they do not all flower at
once. Here come in the modes of plant dispersal, the struggle
for existence and more room, zonal distribution, plant communities, adaptation to climate, how plants protect themselves.
Fortunate, thrice fortunate is the botanical teacher who can
draw diagrams well and with some alacrity, for it helps amazingly in making explanations. It will save many tedious repetitions in the explanations, if a short syllabus or specific statement
be produced in duplicate, so that each student can have a copy.
There will always be some in a class who were not giving close
attention when something was said, or some member will be ab-
sent.
No person for the first 20 weeks of botany should be at the
trouble of learning to use a compound microscope. He should
leave it, till he has made a somewhat intimate acquaintance with
the gross anatomy of plants.
There are a dozen or so designs or blank forms published, having spaces opposite printed names, in which to answer direct

questions about a plant in flower. It is well enough to place
about three copies of this in the hands of each student as he ex-
amines three different plants, but to continue their use for a
greater length of time will tend to relieve the student of thinking
and make a machine of him. The quicker he learns to ask his
own questions and answer them the better, even at the risk of
some omissions.
It seems to be necessary to spend some time in the classroom,
to aid pupils in becoming familiar with artificial keys which lead
to families, where a plant in hand may be described and named,
but, with the other instruction provided for, but little time need
be given to this work. This work is too often spoken of as
analyzing plants, instead of identifying plants. I place a very
low estimate on a common practice of requiring each person in a
class to collect, dry and mount 50 to 100 plants.
I have not had much experience in conducting field excursions,
because my teaching has been done at a college which has a large
campus containing a great assortment of trees and shrubs, and
because there is at hand a botanic garden where the plants
are arranged in families, each plant growing back of a label
which contains its name. It is a part of our plan in the spring
term to go once a week, with the students in small companies of
about a dozen, where some interesting features can be pointed
out.
A botanic club or a natural history society in a school is well
worth encouraging. Let it be officered by the students, and help
them to get up programs, remembering that no society of this
kind can long maintain an interest among its members, if they
plan to have little else than a lecture at each meeting. The
members should be the actors on the program.
I inclose a copy of a reprint from the first report of the Michigan academy of science, entitled:

SUITABLE TOPICS FOR DISOUSSION BY YOUNG MEMBERS OF A
BOTANICAL CLUB
BY W. J. BEAL, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE
(Read before the Academy, April 1, 1897)
In some respects the botany taught in our agricultural col;
lege should be unlike that introduced into a portion of the
courses in a university. For example, the young person bent on
agriculture or horticulture in any of their departments would
hnot need to spend time in the study of mosses, liverworts, lichens,
or algae, or many of the saprophytic fungi. On the contrary, he
does need to learn the names and many of the peculiarities of our
hative and introduced trees and shrubs, the same of the leading:
grasses, clovers and other forage crops; he needs a familiarity
with our weeds, including the seeds of cereals and other field
crops, our parasitic fungi, especially those injurious to cultivated
crops and weeds of all kinds, and some knowledge of the anatomy
and physiology of the higher plants. In a word, he seems to have
a greater need of the old-fashioned systematic botany than is
generally expected in these times in the courses of a university.
Especially should the agricultural student from the start take
much pains to become a close and accurate observer of plants in
the field, orchard, and garden, in fact anywhere found.
For such a course the electives need not be numerous.
For many years past at the state agricultural college there
has been a natural history society with meetings once a month,
at which the observations reported referred mainly to agricul-
ture, horticulture, botany, zoology, and entomology.
A little over six years ago, a botanical club was established
with meetings in the botanical laboratory three or four times
a month. The attendance averages from 10 to 20, with a member.
ship of about 50
During these six years of its existence, there have been pre-
sented 219 topies. Most of the members are mentally young.
I have here a list of 75 or more of these topies, which seem to
be models of their kind for such members to consider. As one
of the objects of the State academy of science is to encourage
young people-or older ones either-to pursue some lines of in-
vestigation appropriate to our aims, I thought this list of topics
would be interesting to such young workers or members of a
young natural history society. It may be needless to say that
in nearly every instance the paper or talk gave the results of
personal observation.
A comparison of the fruits of our three elms.
The flora of Michigan, some notes on.
Beech drops.


The odor of plants.
The box elder.
Proper work of a botanical club.
Thistles of the neighborhood.
A study of the leaves of arbor vitae.
Comparison of the buds of several oaks.
The fruit of the red mulberry.
Comparison of the twigs of three pines.
The roots of the red clover.
Pop corn, before and after popped.
The roots and leaves of a young wheat plant.
The report of a field day.
The flowers of campanula.
The flowers of the common sage.
Petiolar glands.
The life history of corn smut.
Notes on how to observe.
Notes on leaf galls.
The attractions of the botanic garden.
A talk on wheat.
Remarks on native goldenrods and asters
A comparison of beechnuts from several trees.
Large varieties of fruits of a hawthorn.
Autumn leaves.
How botany is taught at the state university.
Notes concerning Dr Watson of Harvard, recently deceased
Detecting the adulteration of buckwheat flour.
A talk on some of our ferns.
A talk on the origin of cultivated plants.
Some of our fresh-water algae by an amateur.
A fungus growing from the neck of a larva.
The adulterations of tea.
Observations on the black knot of the plum.
The adulteration of coffee.
Fasciation in a dandelion.
Our erysiphae and their hosts illustrated.
Report of the meeting of the A. A. A. S.
Different forms of leaves on the same plant.
Carnations, structure, etc .- the models.
The "flow" of sap in the sugar maple.
Questions asked of the botanist of the experiment station.
Our willows illustrated
Some of our earliest grasses.
The structure of a puffball.
Plans of some experiments for preventing smut in oats and
barley:

How to kill quack or couch grass-why?
Botany as seen in the German exhibit at Chicago.
Some of the curious plants grown in the greenhouse.
Four persons talked of as many different kinds of smuts.
Our native orchids.
Two kinds of wild potatoes grown in the botanic garden.
Some of the fungi grown on tomatoes.
The cross-fertilization of wheat.
The improvement of our wild fruits.
Some monstrosities among plants and their meaning.
History and development of some of our grapes.
The mode of distribution of some seeds.
Observations on Michigan pines.
The irregularity in the germination of seeds of weeds and the
advantage to these plants.
Sub-irrigation in the forcing house.
An exhibit of seedling willows.
Observations on oak galls.
A comparison of plants of wheat and chess.
An exhibit of tomatoes grafted on potatoes, both bearing crops
-double cropping.
Experiments with smut on wheat.
Concerning the State academy of science which met at Ann
Arbor June '94.
A visit to Greenland by one of the founders of the club, Mr. 
Orth.
An exhibit of fruits of our native trees and shrubs.
A plant of wild strawberry in the botanic garden had produced
by runners 1234 plants in one year.
The structure and use of bulliform cells in the leaves of some
grasses.
The structure of root tips of wheat, and some branching hairs.
Squirrels dropping cones from trees and biting off limbs.
Exhibition and description of an artificial cell to show
turgescence.
Report regarding the abundance of variegated corn in the field.
The life history of Monilia-plum rot.
An exhibit of chess which had germinated on ice.
An account of cutting wild rice, rafting down the river and
curing for hay in '95.
Report concerning a visit to the U. S. department of agriculture and the M. A. C. men there employed.
The management of the woodlands of the college farm.
The structure and history of the navel orange.
Fairy rings on our lawns (marasmius).

A meeting in the evening at the botanic garden to observe the
opening of flowers of the evening primrose and to see insects
at work on various flowers.
The crossing of pop corn and field corn.
Life history of rust on wheat and barberry.
The seeds of weeds.
I hardly need to add that any botanical club or natural history
club will make slow progress and work to very great disadvantage unless one or more of the members possesses already a
very good knowledge of one or more divisions of natural science.
If possible, such members will be of more aid in securing interest
than a library.

For many years, I have assigned each term one or more suit-
able topics, a different one to each member of the class, which
he considers his personal property. These topics the pupil investigates thoroughly so far as he can, and each member in turn
presents his paper, or talk, usually with illustrations, to the
other members. The quality of the work like that of a recitation is credited as equivalent to two or three or more good or
poor recitations. I have uniformly found that students took an
interest in this plan. For numerous suitable topics consult the
New botany, noticed elsewhere.
Frequently an opportunity arrives for advertising the members of a class a little. I consider the time well spent, provided
the preparation is all of it in line with the legitimate work of
the class during that term. Some of the teachers may be interested in a plan which I tried in 1886. In Michigan we have a
thrifty state horticultural society that holds meetings in different
parts of the state, thus performing missionary service. A meeting was to be held near the college with which I am connected.
College was in session. I thought to stimulate the students of
a certain class and interest the members of the society. 17
young persons gave three minute talks to the horticulturists on
topics which they had been studying by the aid of the compound
microscope. The subjects of the talks given were as follows:
1) structure of a leaf; 2) the mouths of a leaf; 3) young hairs of
a leaf; 4) sting of a nettle; 5) talking and showing drawings
of protoplasm in motion; 6) palisade cells in a leaf; 7) starch of

common and wild potato from Arizona compared; 8) the frame-
work of a leaf; 9) fibers of cotton, flax and wool compared; 10)
why nuts are hard; 11) tough and brittle white ash compared,
as seen magnified; 12) structure of a grain of wheat; 13) pollen
and its growth; 14) quince rust; 15) corn smut; 16) a study of
common bread mold; 17) effect of severe cold or heat on the
cells and their contents.
The secretary reported: "The drawings were admirably executed, and on the whole the entire exercise was as interesting
as anything ever presented to the society." The illustrations
were copied and with the text appeared in the report of the
society in 1886, which gratified the students and probably did
them no harm. Some of you may find occasion where a short
exercise illustrated and presented by a class, each saying a little,
will attract much greater interest than where only one or a very
few speak longer. And no doubt some of you may have already
tried this plan.
Even for college students I have found it beneficial to write
neatly on the blackboard some motto or sentiment which shall
catch the eye for two or three days. Here are some that I have
used. No real progress can be made in botany, till the student
learns to observe. Neatness begets accuracy. "Mere book
knowledge of natural history is a sham and a delusion." (Huxley) "The pupil must earn his facts." (Goodale) "The teacher
of biology will keep the student on the right track, but let him
find the truth himself." (Farlow) Make frequent and thorough
comparisons of two or more plants or similar parts of plants.
" In biology, laboratory work should precede any detailed course
of lectures." (Farlow) Details and facts before principles and
conclusions. To learn to observe well, concentrate the attention
for some time on a very small portion of the field, then in like
manner study other portions. As an instrument of research,
the microscope now occupies a position which is second to none.
A trained eye is valuable in any kind of business. Merely learning the name of a plant or part of a plant can no longer be
palmed off as valuable training. Correct teaching of botany

simply giving the thirsty a chance to drink, He who expectorates on the floor must not expect to rate high in his class.
To lose a lesson is to unsettle a week. "He who can teach only
by the book had better not begin." (Prof. Wesley) " From first
to last the student should be an investigator." (Prof. Wesley)
"Patting one on the back and saying, 'Don't you see this?' and
'Don't you see that? does not tend to produce a very robust
mental development." (Farlow)
You should not neglect to tell the members of your board of
control, whether they like to hear it or not, that giving good
instruction in natural history is costly, but, notwithstanding the
cost, no one in these times can lay claim to a liberal education
who has not had a pretty good drill in botany or zoology or both
of these. By costly, I mean not only to take into account the
apparatus required, but the sizes of the sections and the hours
for the work. For example, it costs about five times as much
to teach a class of 30 in the subject of parasitic fungi as it does
to teach the same students history or political economy.
None of us will ever live to perfect a course in botany that
will stand the test of future discoveries and methods of teaching,
nor shall we ever agree for a single year as to what should be
taught or how it should be taught. In his report for 1888-89,
Pres. Eliot said:

During recent years every college teacher has been forced
to answer anew the personal questions, What can I best
teach, and how shall I teach it? Every man has really been
obliged to take up new subjects and to treat them by new
methods. There is not a single member of the faculty who is
today teaching what he taught 15 years ago, as he taught it
then. Each teacher has to recast his work
faculty has to invent, readjust, and expand the comprehensive
framework of the course.

Altogether likely most of those present agree as to the great
value of a training in botany. I venture to give my opinion:
1 There is nothing better for training the power of observation.
2 The comparison of one plant or one part of a plant with an-
other cultivates the power of inductive reasoning.

3 In learning the definition of new words, the memory is
strengthened, the vocabulary enlarged.
4 There is nothing better to train the power of precise and
brief description in using each word with a definite meaning.
5 To follow successive changes that take place in shape, pro-
portion, size, color, as seen in one plant from seed to maturity,
develops the observation, powers of description, and the judgment.
6 By experimenting to learn the results that follow changes in
temperature, light, moisture; by mutilating or removing certain
parts, many facts may be obtained, enabling one to arrive at
certain correct conclusions.
7 To become acquainted with the minute anatomy of plants
by the aid of sections made in different directions and seen with
a compound microscope, cultivates the imagination as well as
the powers of observation and reasoning.
8 The preparation of materials for examination trains the hand
to precision as well as the eye and the judgment.
9 "In studying botany a student gains in analytic and syn-
thetic powers." (T. C. Abbot)
10 "It is the best system of practical logic, and the study
exercises and shapes at once both the powers of reasoning and
observation more probably than any other pursuit." (Asa Gray,
who possessed a good knowledge of mathematics and Latin as
well as of botany).
What shall I say of the value of training acquired by studying
bacteria and lichens, by experimenting to demonstrate that certain fungi, like wheat rust and many others, assume two distinct forms on each of two different host plants?
In these times textbooks for beginners are appearing in rapid
succession. It is a barren month in which one or more are not
published. In two instances within my knowledge, the editor
has prepared two books for young students, and in one case three
books by one author have appeared within a period of two years.
New textbooks are always welcome to teachers, but the difficulty
of selecting just the right one is not so easy. What does this

influx of botanical textbooks mean? Simply this, there are many
persons interested in botany, and the subject is undergoing rapid
changes. New discoveries in new channels make it an inducement for teachers to try a hand in making a new book. At present, the subject is in a somewhat chaotic condition. I have shown
myself lacking in decision of character, by inability to select a
textbook for beginners that just suited me. I have tried several.
to discard at last all of them; and finally, to put into the hands
of competent instructors-and no others should attempt to
teach-I made a small work myself. Of course you have not
seen it, for it is not in the list of any publisher. In the preface I
wrote the following lines:

I object to telling students at every step what they are to see,
or to imply as much by numerous direct questions. I think it
unwise to place in the hands of a beginner a book containing good
pictures of what is to be learned from specimens. To give him
a full text and good pictures is much like placing a translation
in the hands of one who is studying Greek, Latin or German. Excepting as a model now and then, I do not think it best to supply
printed schedules for plant study.

With those views in mind, all we need to put in the hands of a
student is a brief outline of the course and a good glossary at the
end of the pamphlet. Students are all supplied with good specimens in abundance at all times of the year; then what are pictures
for except to tell the student what to look for? Having seen
that, he believes he has seen all there is to be discovered. His
curiosity ends then and there. Neither is it a good plan to
lecture a class of young students implying that you are telling
all there is known on a certain point-that there is nothing
more to learn about the subject. Tell them rather, that no one
knows it all, that here is a fine chance to make original investigations and yon are about sure to be right in such statements.
As helps to teachers of botany, no one can afford to neglect to
read the Teaching botanist, by W. F. Ganong, published in 1899
by Macmillan.
To my students, who are about to study with the aid of a com-


pound microscope, I take great pleasure in reading parts of a
most admirable paper by Dr W. G. Farlow on biologic teaching
in colleges, printed in the Popular science monthly, March 1886.
Some of you may like to secure a copy of the New botany-a
lecture on the best method of teaching the science by W. J. Beal.
Third edition. 1890. 10c. Published by the Rural New Yorker,
409 Pearl St. New York.

PARTIAL LIST OF ELEMENTARY TEXTBOOKS ON BOTANY
Atkinson, G. F. Elementary botany. N. Y. 1898. Holt $1.25.
Lessons in botany. N. Y. 1900. Holt $1.
Bailey, L. H. Lessons with plants. N. Y. 1898. Macmillan
$1.10.

First lessons with plants. N. Y. 1898. Macmillan 40c.
Botany: an elementary textbook for schools. N. Y.
1900. Macmillan $1.25.
Barnes, C. R. Plant life considered with special reference to
form and function. N. Y. 1898. Holt $1.12.
Outlines of plant life, with special reference to form
and function. N. Y. 1900. Holt $1.
Bergen, J. Y. Elements of botany. Bost. 1896. Ginn $1.20.
Foundations of Botany. Bost. 1901. Ginn.
Bessey, C. E. Essentials of botany. N. Y. 1896. Holt $1.08.
Bower & Vines. Course of practical instruction in botany.
Lond. 1885. Macmillan.
Campbell, D. H. Elements of structural and systematic botany.
Bost. 1891. Ginn $1.
Clark, C. H. Laboratory manual in practical botany. N. Y.
1898. American book co. 96c.
Coulter, J. M. Plant relations; a first book of botany. N. Y.
1899. Appleton $1.10.
Plant structures: a second book of botany. N. Y. 1899.
Appleton $1.10.

Darwin, F. Elements of botany. Cambridge Eng. 1895. University press.
Evans, E. Botany for beginners. Lond. 1899. Macmillan.
Gray, Asa. Elements of botany. N. Y. 1887 and later editions.
American book co. 94c.
How plants grow. N. Y. 1862 and later. American
book co. 60c.
Kellerman, W. A. Elements of botany. Phila. 1883.
Macbride, T. H. Lessons in elementary botany. Bost. 1896. Allyn & Bacon.
Macdougal, S. T. The nature and work of plants. N. Y. Macmillan. 1900.

Massee, G. The plant world. Lond. 1898. Whittaker 2s 6d.
Newell, Jane H. Outlines of lessons in botany, pt 1 and 2. Bost.
1892. Ginn 90c.
Rattan, V. A popular California flora. San Francisco 1882.
A. L. Bancroft & Co.
Setchell, W. A. Laboratory practice for beginners in botany.
N. Y. 1898. Macmillan 90c.
Spalding, V. M. Guide to the study of common plants. Bost.
1895. Heath 90c.
Willis, J. C. Manual and dictionary of the flowering plants and
ferns. Cambridge Eng. 1897. University press 10s 6d.

Prof. James H. Stoller-I would suggest that the discussion of
Prof. Beal's paper, so interesting and so full of practical suggestions, may be had very well in connection with the paper to
be read tomorrow morning, the " Framing of a course in biology
for untrained minds". I suggest, with Prof. Beal's consent, that
we defer the discussion till that time, and, if we come promptly
together, we shall have time for the discussion of both papers.