Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/655

Rh lower ones have been previously studied. On this point B. Fink, writing in Science, says: "I wish to enter a protest against the method of teaching botany still in vogue in certain colleges and high schools; . . . the old plan of a spring term in botany confined to a study of phanerogams, followed by the analysis of from fifty to one hundred plants. This way of studying botany came into use when the microscope was scarcely known among the masses, and when the economic interest of the lower orders of, vegetable life was not well understood. . . . Instead of the old plan, I would have all schools during the first term take up the orders, proceeding from the lowest to the highest, and close the work with the leading facts of vegetable physiology. I would divide the time equally between cryptogams, phanerogams, and physiology. This both gives the best foundation on which to build, and is the most essential knowledge for the student who can not give more time to the subject." President Coulter gives as his opinion the following: "It is more satisfactory and scientific to begin with the study of the simplest forms, not merely because they are far easier to understand, but also because this order of study will give some notion of the evolution of the plant kingdom. The many advantages of this order of study—advantages which have been seen in much experience—should outweigh any supposed advantage in beginning with the study of the most complex plants. In my own experience both methods have been tried, and in beginning with flowering plants and then afterward approaching them from the lower forms, I have invariably found that previous wrong conceptions of the higher forms had to be corrected. J thoroughly believe that no proper notion of higher groups can be obtained without previous study of the lower ones." Prof. Campbell, of Stanford University, advocates strongly following Nature's order in plant study, of which fact his excellent text-book is the best evidence. In response to inquiry on this point, he writes: "I have never had any serious trouble, even with quite young students, in beginning with the protophytes. One advantage in beginning with microscopic work is that it requires an amount of concentration upon a single object that is very valuable in forcing the student to observe accurately, especially when he is obliged to draw carefully what he has seen."

Plant physiology ought to receive more attention than it now does. To study the structure of an organ without considering its use is of little value. In fact, the chief object of morphological work should be to furnish a basis for physiological and systematic work. Enough time should be spent upon classification to