A survey of college courses of economic botany

Summary

Of the 135 schools listed in this survey, there are still over 110 schools and colleges in the United States giving courses covering the general area of Economic Botany at the undergraduate or graduate level in colleges of arts, sciences or letters. Such courses consist largely of lectures, meeting two or three times a week, and supplemented in many instances by at least an additional period of laboratory microscopic observation or demonstration of visual aids, muscum tours or trips into the fields or factories where plant products are being grown or produced on a large scale.

The general, such a course also carries with it a certain amount of research reading in the library in connection with a required project or term paper which is presented to the class at one of its meeting periods. In one course (that at Harvard), these papers represent about 1/3 of the grade, and, each year, a number are of such high calibre that they are published in learned journals.

Several texts have been quite generally used as a basis of study in such college courses, among which Hill’s “Economic. Botany” (6) and Schery’s “Plants for Man” (7) are the most popular. Hutehinson and Melville’s “The Story of Plants and Their Uses to Man” (8) is strongly recommended for use in classes involving teachers of elementary education. E. E. Stanford’s “Economic Plants” (9) and “General and Economic Botany” have also been used, although both of these are in need of revision and are presently out of print. Credits of from two to three semester hours or up to four quarter hours have been given hy various schools giving such a course. This is frequently counted toward a major in Biology or Agriculture-Biology combination, and may be applied as a general education course for those not majoring in these fields. It is strongly recommended for those going into educational fields in either Elementary or Secondary schools, and is highly desirable as an elective for those in the fields of Business, Geography, Anthropology or Social Studies.

The course is most often taken by students in the Junior and Senior years, hut is open in general to students in any year of college, including the graduate school. Freshmen are discouraged from taking it. however, unless they are quite mature or have previously had at least the equivalent of six hours of General Biology or a single course in Botany. It has, in most instances, where properly taught by an enthusiastic and well-informed instructor, been very well received by the students, some of whom have been encouraged by the instructor to pursue their interest into the graduate level. It is hoped that more of this will take place in the futnre, as there is a need for such teachers at the college level, particularly in the smaller eolleges, with a background and appreeiatiomi of the general aspects of Economic Botany along with the kaowledge of the fnndainentals of plant science at the undergraduate level.