PROCEEDINGS OF THE CLUB

MARCH 8, 1910

The meeting was held at the American Museum of Natural History, beginning at 8.15 P. M. Mr. Charles Louis Pollard acted as temporary chairman, giving way soon to Vice-president Barnhart. Forty persons were present.

The minutes of the meeting of February 23 were read and approved.

The committee appointed to consider ways and means of increasing the influence and efficiency of the Club presented a report, which was read by its chairman, Miss Jean Broadhurst.

An application from Professor J. C. Arthur of Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, for a grant of $200 from the Esther Herrman Fund of the New York Academy of Sciences to further his researches upon the Uredinales was read and was ordered to be forwarded to the Council of the Academy with the endorsement of the Club.

The editor asked permission to publish as one of the Club's Memoirs a paper by Mr. O. Butler of Cornell University, entitled "Observations on the California vine disease". It was voted to refer the matter to the editorial board with power to act.

The secretary called the attention of members of the Club to a communication from Rev. L. H. Lighthipe, offering for sale back volumes of the Bulletin, Memoirs, and Torreya.

The following new members were then elected: Walter C. Cameron, 239 West 136th St., New York City; Rev. H. M. Denslow, D.D., 2 Chelsea Square, New York City; Bernard O. Dodge, 528 West 123d St., New York City; Carl A. Schwarze, 92 Stagg St., Brooklyn, N. Y.; and Sereno Stetson, 507 West 113th St., New York City.

The announced scientific program consisted of a lecture by Dr. Mel T. Cook on "Cuba: The People and Country".

The lecture was of a popular character and was illustrated by numerous lantern-slides. The speaker first showed views of the city of Havana, of its parks with their luxuriant tropical vegetation, and of the old fortifications which are being over-run by

various plants, causing the disintegration of the massive walls. Among such plants Rhytidophyllum crenulatum is the most prominent. Attention was next directed to the suburban driveways and country roads in both winter and summer conditions and to the trees that have been planted along their sides. These plantings. consist principally of Ficus religiosa, Ficus nitida (which is commonly known as laurel), Terminalia Catappa (popularly called almond), royal poincianas, royal palms, and other well-known ornamental trees of the tropics. The palms are made use of for many purposes; they furnish shade for tobacco, and their leaves are employed for wind-breaks, in the construction of houses, in making coverings for tobacco bales, in making rain-coats, etc.

Allusion was made also to the work of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Santiago de las Vegas and to the agricultural conditions and products of various parts of the island. The speaker also showed views from thinly settled portions of Cuba, giving an idea of the scenery and the character of the indigenous vegetation.

Adjournment followed.

MARSHALL A. HOWE,
Secretary pro tem.

OF INTEREST TO TEACHERS

SOME REFLECTIONS UPON BOTANICAL EDUCATION IN AMERICA

BY W. F. GANONG

In the address with which he welcomed the American Association for the Advancement of Science to Columbia University three years ago, President Butler centered his remarks on a matter of the first scientific and educational importance. He said, in effect, that for a quarter century he had been a close and friendly observer of the progress of the sciences in education, that during this time he had seen them win almost complete recogni

* Address of the retiring president of the Botanical Society of America, delivered at Boston, December 28, 1909. Reprinted by permission from Science, March 4,

tion and opportunity, but that he was obliged to confess to some disappointment at the results. He was not referring to the sciences in technical education, for in this field their status is satisfactory, but to their position in general or cultural education. He did not presume, he said, to suggest either an explanation or a remedy, but he submitted the matter to the consideration of his expert audience. These words of this eminent educational observer touched an answering chord in my own thoughts, and since that time I have found, by inquiry among my colleagues, that he voiced a feeling quite general among scientific men themselves. It seems, therefore, to be a fact that the sciences, although dealing in knowledge of matters of the greatest immediate interest, and although concerned with the most elemental of all trainings that in the correlated use of hand, eye and mind still of mediocre efficiency as factors in general education. propose now to discuss briefly the reasons I have been able to find for this undesirable condition of a part of our scientific affairs, and to suggest with particular reference to our own beloved science, some remedy therefor.

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It will help to clarify our problem if we can come to an understanding upon certain points in the general relations of the sciences to education, the first being this what place ought the sciences to have in education? I think we shall agree that the sciences can never, under any circumstances, hold a place in education nearly as prominent as that of the humanities. Man is not primarily a reasoning but a feeling being. As a philosopher has expressed it, "few men think at all and they but seldom." Hence the great majority of people in most part, and all people in some degree, can best be reached and influenced by studies which appeal primarily to the feelings, that is, by the humanities, while it is only a minority which can best be reached by studies appealing chiefly to the reason that is, by the sciences and mathematics. But a minority has rights, and those to whom the sciences especially appeal, and to whom therefore they are of the higher cultural value, are just as entitled to efficient instruction in their subjects as are the majority in theirs. The sciences must always hold, from their nature in conjunction with that of hu

manity, a position quantitatively inferior to that of the humanities, but they are entitled to a qualitative equality of educational rank and opportunity. This they do not yet possess, and it is alike our duty and our interest to see that they shall.

A second point of importance in the general relations of the sciences to education is involved in the fact that the times themselves are a bit out of joint, educationally speaking. This is not a matter of individual opinion, but of well-nigh universal agreement. The recent addresses of our younger college presidents have united in expressing dissatisfaction with the results derived from our superb educational equipment, while the remarkable declaration of principles of the National Educational Association, issued a year and a half ago, recognizes an equivalent condition for the schools. It is a fact that our students as a whole have many hazy impressions but little exact knowledge, are habitually inaccurate even in the three r's and have too little regard for intellectual matters. The cause of it all is obvious enough. Our education, step by step with our modern life, has become luxurized. Its features disagreeable to young people have been sedulously softened, their whims are determinants of educational programs, and the responsibility for learning has been largely shifted from them to their teachers. The wise Mr. Dooley has the modern college president say to the incoming freshman : "What branch iv larnin' wud ye like to have studied f'r ye be our compitint profissors?" and his humor as usual illumines a central kernel of truth. The trouble with our education is this, that it needs more starch; yea, it needs a bit more blood and iron. It ignores the fact that, with the mind as with the body, it is only through effort that strength can be gained, and through responsibility that character can be formed. It is not more work our students need, but work of a kind which does more to inculcate a willingness for effort, and pride in a Spartan devotion to duty of a kind which enkindles in the heart of youth the precious spark of intellectual ambition. I would not exaggerate the defects of our present-day education. I know they do not go to the vitals, and certainly they are more serious in some places than others. But this granted, there yet remains too great

a deficiency, especially in educational morale. Our colleges are not going to the dogs, but they certainly permit some very queer mongrels to roam at large on the campus.

Now the application of these remarks to our present problem is doubtless sufficiently plain. In an educational system which too much permits inaccuracy of work, indefiniteness of knowledge, avoidance of effort, and whimsical selection of studies in such

a system the sciences, whose essence is care, exactness, persistence and consistency, have not a wholly fair chance. One of the principal reasons, therefore, why the sciences do not loom larger in present-day education is the fault of that education and not of the sciences.

A third point of importance in the educational status of the sciences is involved in the fact that they have not as yet had time to become organized and standardized for their most effective educational use. The humanities have behind them so many generations of experience that they are now measurably standardized throughout, and offer a continuous and suitably-graded training from kindergarten to college. But the sciences as laboratorytaught subjects are not much more than a single generation old, and many of their problems are still unsettled. In the higher grades our teaching is better than in the lower, while, as everybody knows, we are still far from any consistent and continuous system of instruction in nature knowledge in the lower schools. Just here lies a great weakness of scientific education at the present day, for students too often are sent into high school and college not only without the positive advantage of good early training, but even with a prejudice against a kind of activity of which they had little, or too often an unfortunate, experience. This condition is inevitable to the youthfulness, educationally, of the sciences, and will be remedied in time.

The last point I would mention in the educational relations of the sciences to the older subjects is this, that the sciences are under some minor disabilities from which the others are free. These center in the laboratory, and are connected in part with the fact that the laboratory type of study, with its mechanical manipulation, its fixed hours and methods of work, and its absolute re