The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-09
WABASH AND PROF. COULTER
The Study ofthe Natural Sciences in the
Colleges and Universities of Indiana.
Biology with Prof Coulter-An Hour i'm His
Laboratory at Crawfordsyille-Great
Names in Science from this State.


Written for the Indianapolis Journal
There is no better evidence that it is the
teachers who make the school, rather than costly
buildings, dornitories. expensive apparatus,
widely varied courses Of study and the like, than
to visit the colleges and see what teachers are
attracting students and building up their de-
partments. At Purdue. for example, the me-
chanical department has naturally and easily
taken the lead for several years under Professor
Goss; Dr. Jordon has made zoology the leading
branch of natural science at Bloomington;
Professor Baker has popularized elemen-
tary analytical chemistry at DePauw to
an extent not achieved, perhaps in any
other of our schools In sympathy with this
law, which is most fully recognized in the Ger
man universities, the study of biology takes the
lead in Wabash College, and overshadows. in a
measure, the other natural science departments.
Professor Coulter is the presiding genius of the
laboratories and museum. He is to them what
Agassiz was at Penikese, and under his hand
have been arranged the completest facilities for
original work in botany and zoologyin the West
Students of botany in the Western States have
no call to go to Eastern colleges. Professors
Bessey, of Iowa; Barns of Purdue; j. G..
Arthur, of Minnesota VIM. Trelease, of
Michigan, and Professor T.. j. Burrill
or Illinois, among the workers that are in
line with Professor Coulter, and are teaching
and studying botany by the natural method,
Sud taking host Of students along with them
1.-THE SUM and substance Of our work, said
Professor Coulter to the writer, ''is that it is
both educative and productive. This museum
4 - L
Of it, as look at it. is the acove devoted to
ethnolosy and archaeology, although it is ten
times more visited and excites more curiosity
and idle question on the part of visitors than
any other department. Our work is not hap
hazard; students do not squint through a
microscope, exclaim %, N.Y., and that's the end
of it, as at the ordinary mcroscopical soirees
Our work in the laboratory is attended with
lectures, quizzes and theses; the students are
given direction only; they must work in
the warp and wool themselves. My
whole time is spent working up
the large collections of Western plants
now coming in. We have just finished large
series from New Mexico, containing a number of
new species. Here is my herbarium room. In
these cases you may turn to any of the four
thousand species described in Gray's Manual,
and to most of those in Chapman's Southern
Flora Here are $1,000 species Of plants rep
resented by over SOC 900 specimens. have here
tina plants from the West, which are the basis
Of my Systematic Botany of the Great
Plains and Rocky Mountains" The
book will contain keys and descriptions
of over 5000 Western species, and is really a
continuation of Grays Manual to the westward
The Pacific coast species are not included
They have been worked up by Prof. Gray and
Serene Watson, and are already published. My
beat includes the Rocky mountains and the
great plains west of the prairie region, and
north to British America Gray's lessons will be
bound up with the book, and so it will be a
complete manual and lessons for the great area
it includes 1t will be out for the fall schools. !"
In regard to the NEW methods" of teaching
botany, Prof: Coulter said: I'VE do not make
analyses of plants, that is systematic botany,
the sum and substance of botanical knowledge
as of old, and as is now done in many schools
We select types representing the great
groups of plants, study them in detail
and in their relationships. To facilitate this
work | am preparing, with the aid of Professor
Barnes of Purdue University, q manual of
plant structure for laboratory use 1t will be
completed this summer and ready for the labo-
ratories in the autumn. 1t is on the general
plan of Huxley and Martins Biology. The latter
book is sadly deficient in its botanical chapters,
and we have just simply saved our laboratory
studies and methods with certain typical groups,
which have proved successful with us, and are
going to have them in book form for our own
use and that of others. The plant kingdom
should be viewed as one great whole,
and the student made familiar with
no reason why our high-schools should not study
botany and zoology by the laboratory method
just as they do chemistry. For instance the In
dianapolis High-school might fit up biological
laboratory as cheaply as chemical laboratory
and supply it with a dozen simple dissecting
glasses, costing about $75, and with a dozen
compound microscopes costing only $500. Then
get live teacher and take the electives in botany
for only electives do well in natural science
twelve or so in class. and do some good work
with the thing itself, and discard the old text
book methods in botany and zoology
l have thrown out all text books
for college classes In natural history;
we have abundant reference books in each of the
laboratories; we have the stuff, the tables the
room and the instruments / want my students
to study one subject through many books, rather
than many subjects through one book
Analytical botany is only q small part of the
subject; perhaps 10 per cent of it. We do not
ignore it however. Students have identified $50
different wild species right here in our campus
of forty acres, and that by the 18th of June
The 1,60O plants of Indiana are all to be seen in
our herbarium, and also some plants Liun@us
collected himself, $50 years ago. In these two
bound volumes are the very specimens from
which Professor Gray described his grasses
and sedges in 1888 and 1885, for his great sys-
tematic work on botany of the northern United
States. He gave them to me as a memento, and
prize them highly. Here is bundle of plants
from Colorado, containing many new species,
which am describing and naming. They are
published with those Of Professor Gray and 9th
ers in the proceedings of the American Academy,
as fast as they are described, and will be in
cluded in my new book"
'sHow do you put your students through q
course ia biologyln the writer asked.
''Tha general plan is as follows: The student
takes four lectures a week, and two
hours laboratory work in the soph-
more year. This puts him through
the principal types of the plant and animal king
doms. His books, made from lecture
from reference and from laboratory study, are
left right here where they are made. Here are
n ham a.. xdos.