Abstract
THE subject of Prof. E. J. Salisbury's presidential address to Section K (Botany) is the modern study of plants in relation to education. There are several misconceptions with respect both to the contacts and to the contents of botanical science. Despite the vastly enlarged content of botanical knowledge since it was regarded as a harmless and elegant occupation for the female sex, the general conception of botany has remained much what it was then. The high value of botany as an educational subject and indeed its absolute necessity in any system of real cultural development is an aspect that botanists have failed to present and emphasize. This is partly the outcome of the growing obtrusion of the more technological aspects in this as in other subjects ; a trend which is making itself felt further and further back in the student's training, at the expense of general education and culture. Here, as elsewhere, too much attention is paid to the acquisition of mere information, too little to the principles which are involved.
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Education and the Modern Study of Plants. Nature 140, 415 (1937). https://doi.org/10.1038/140415a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/140415a0
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