By JOHN GAYLORD COULTER, Ph. D.
AN elementary textbook providing a foundation for the study of agriculture, domestic science, or college botany. But it is more than a textbook on botany—it is a book about the fundamentals of plant life and about the relations between plants and man. It presents as fully as is desirable for required courses in high schools those large facts about plants which form the present basis of the science of botany. Yet the treatment has in view preparation for life in general, and not preparation for any particular kind of calling.
The subject is dealt with from the viewpoint of the pupil rather than from that of the teacher or the scientist. The style is simple, clear, and conversational, yet the method is distinctly scientific, and the book has a cultural as well as a practical object.
The text has a unity of organization. So far as practicable the familiar always precedes the unfamiliar in the sequence of topics, and the facts are made to hang together in order that the pupil may see relationships. Such topics as forestry, plant breeding, weeds, plant enemies and diseases, plant culture, decorative plants, and economic bacteria are discussed where most pertinent to the general theme rather than in separate chapters which destroy the continuity. The questions and suggestions which follow the chapters are of two kinds; some are designed merely to serve as an aid in the study of the text, while others suggest outside study and inquiry. The classified tables of terms which precede the index are intended to serve the student in review, and to be a general guide to the relative values of the facts presented. More than 200 attractive illustrations, many of them original, are included in the book.
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
ESSENTIALS OF BIOLOGY
By GEORGE WILLIAM HUNTER, A. M., Head of Department of Biology, De Witt Clinton High School, New York City.
THIS new first-year course treats the subject of biology as a whole, and meets the requirements of the leading colleges and associations of science teachers. Instead of discussing plants, animals, and man as separate forms of living organisms, it treats of life in a comprehensive manner, and particularly in its relations to the progress of humanity. Each main topic is introduced by a problem, which the pupil is to solve by actual laboratory work. The text that follows explains and illustrates the meaning of each problem. The work throughout aims to have a human interest and a practical value, and to provide the simplest and most easily comprehended method of demonstration. At the end of each chapter are lists of references to both elementary and advanced books for collateral reading.
SHARPE’S LABORATORY
MANUAL IN BIOLOGY
IN this Manual the 56 important problems of Hunter’s Essentials of Biology are solved; that is, the principles of biology are developed from the laboratory standpoint. It is a teacher’s detailed directions put into print. It states the problems, and then tells what materials and apparatus are necessary and how they are to be used, how to avoid mistakes, and how to get at the facts when they are found. Following each problem and its solution is a full list of references to other books.