Textbook of botany

Excerpt from Textbook of Botany: There are such wide differences of opinion regarding the proper content of an elementary course in botany that no teacher would venture to put forth a particular selection of facts and principles as the only one wisely to be made from the great body of knowledge concerning plants. The present writers are quite uninclined to adopt such an attitude toward their own choice; still less would they insist upon the precise order in which the materials they have selected should be presented. We are convinced, however, that an introductory course can best be centered about a fairly intensive study of a small number of plants, and that an attempt at a more desultory treatment of the subject must prove unsatisfactory. The plants used as types should be easily available; and so far as possible they should be selected from among those that already have definite meanings to the pupil, either because of their familiarity or because of their utility. In addition, the predominance and the practical significance of the seed plants may be recognized by devoting some time to a study of their divers forms and uses; and in this study, too, illustrations should be drawn chiefly from those plants of which the pupil sees or hears most in his everyday life. At whatever point in the course this latter work is done, it should have been preceded by an intensive study of the life of at least one particular seed plant. The present book offers a sufficient amount of work for a year's course. Probably all teachers will agree that a secondary school course in botany should not occupy less time than this, although, unfortunately, the ideal is often impossible of attainment. The order of presentation here adopted is that which will probably, in general, be most satisfactory in schools that begin the study of botany in the fall.