Beginners' botany - L. H. Bailey

AUTHORIZED BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION
FOR ONTARIO

TORONTO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LIMITED
1921

PREFACE

In all teaching of plants and animals to beginners, the plants themselves and the animals themselves should be made the theme, rather than any amount of definitions and of mere study in books. Books will be very useful in guiding the way, in arranging the subjects systematically, and in explaining obscure points; but if the pupil does not know the living and growing plants when he has completed his course in botany, he has not acquired very much that is worth the while.

It is well to acquaint the beginner at first with the main features of the entire plant rather than with details of its parts. He should at once form a mental picture of what the plant is, and what are some of its broader adaptations to the life that it leads. In this book, the pupil starts with the entire branch or the entire plant. It is sometimes said that the pupil cannot grasp the idea of struggle for existence until he knows the names and the uses of the different parts of the plant. This is an error, although well established in present-day methods of teaching.

Another very important consideration is to adapt the statement of any fact to the understanding of a beginner. It is easy, for example, to fall into technicalities when discussing osmosis; but the minute explanations would mean nothing to the beginner and their use would tend to confuse the picture which it is necessary to leave in the pupil’s mind. Even the use of technical forms of expression would probably not go far enough to satisfy the trained physicist. It is impossible ever to state the last thing about any proposition. All knowledge is relative. What is very elementary to one mind may be very technical and advanced to another. It is neither necessary nor desirable to safeguard statements to the beginner by such qualifications as will make them satisfactory to the critical expert in science. The teacher must understand that while accuracy is always essential, the degree of statement is equally important when teaching beginners.

The value of biology study lies in the work with the actual objects. It is not possible to provide specimens for every part of the work, nor is it always desirable to do so; for the beginning pupil may not be able to interest himself in the objects, and he may become immersed in details before he has arrived at any general view or reason of the subject. Great care must be exercised that the pupil is not swamped. Mere book work or memory stuffing is useless, and it may dwarf or divert the sympathies of active young minds.

The present tendency in secondary education is away from the formal technical completion of separate subjects and toward the developing of a workable training in the activities that relate the pupil to his own life. In the natural science field, the tendency is to attach less importance to botany and zoology as such, and to lay greater stress on the processes and adaptations of life as expressed in plants and animals. Education that is not applicable, that does not put the pupil into touch with the living knowledge and the affairs of his time, may be of less educative value than the learning of a trade in a shop. We are beginning to learn that the ideals and the abilities should be developed out of the common surroundings and affairs of life rather than imposed on the pupil as a matter of abstract unrelated theory.

It is much better for the beginning pupil to acquire a real conception of a few central principles and points of view respecting common forms that will enable him to tie his knowledge together and organize it and apply it, than to familiarize himself with any number of mere facts about the lower forms of life which, at the best, he can know only indirectly and remotely. If the pupil wishes to go farther in later years, he may then take up special groups and phases.