ArtPlantae Today

In the second part of his series about the history of botany education in America, professor Marshall D. Sundberg takes a look at how botany textbooks, classroom instruction and student learning evolved in the 19th century. Part Two in this series focuses on textbook authors, teachers and America’s first professional botanists.

Botany textbooks were big business in the 1800s as educators, botanists and botany enthusiasts strived to carry out two things: 1) Teach botany to the public, and 2) Turn botany into a professional discipline.

The author of the first bestselling botany book in the U.S. was the female “botanophile” (i.e., botany enthusiast), Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps (Sundberg, 2012). Phelps taught botany at a seminary and it is her experiences as a teacher that made her realize the need for a botany book for beginners. So she wrote a book based upon her lecture notes and published Familiar Lectures on Botany: Including practical and elementary botany with generic and specific descriptions of the most common native and foreign plants and a vocabulary of botanical terms for the use of higher schools and academies (1929). Phelps, who became the second woman elected to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1859 (Sundberg, 2012), had some competition in the textbook market. Competitors included her teacher Amos Eaton, Alphonso Wood (a popular author of taxonomy textbooks for all grade levels), and America’s first professional botanist, Asa Gray (Sundberg, 2012). Between them they published several textbooks for elementary schools, secondary schools and universities.

The growth of botany programs in the U.S. increased as the number of colleges and universities increased (Sundberg, 2012). Many firsts occurred during this period of growth. For example, in 1847 Asa Gray taught the first one-month intensive botany class that would become the precursor to upper division botany labs and graduate programs (Sundberg, 2012). In 1871, Gray taught the first summer workshops in botany for U.S. high school teachers (Sundberg, 2012). At Iowa Agricultural College professor Charles E. Bessey started the first botany lab for undergrads in America in 1873 and, one year later, introduced students at the University of California to laboratory methods in botany (Sundberg, 2012).

Today we take for granted the availability of journal articles about all aspects of teaching and learning in biology. There was a time, however, when they didn’t exist. This changed in 1880 when Bessey’s graduate student, J.C. Arthur, wrote the first teaching paper in a botanical journal (Sundberg, 2012). What was his article about? It was about how the stem of a pumpkin is a good laboratory example of a dicot stem (Sundberg, 2012). Two years later, Bessey wrote an article suggesting teachers use Asparagus stems as their laboratory example of a monocot stem (Sundberg, 2012).

As for teaching methods in botany, this was a new topic area too. William J. Beal described his approach to teaching botany in an article published in the Botanical Gazette a journal serving, as Sundberg (2012) describes it, as “the mouthpiece of the younger generation of botanists”. Beal’s pedagogical approach to teaching botany emphasized observation and the recording of written and visual descriptions (Sundberg, 2012).

And let’s not forget the first textbook about plant dissection. Written by J.C. Arthur, the Handbook of Plant Dissection was published in 1886 and in addition to all that you’d expect to find in a dissection manual, includes commentary about the value of drawing what one observes in lab.

Sundberg’s article about the development of botany education in this country sheds light on the origins of the different philosophies within the discipline, as well as different philosophies in biology education. Take for example, the 19th century conversation surrounding the value of biology education over botany and zoology education. Sundberg’s discussion of opposing philosophies brought back memories of grad school and the tensions within the biology department where I went to school. Back then there was much conversation about the development of a new curriculum that would change how botany and zoology classes would be taught. It was the “cell squishers” against the “lizard chasers” — this is how grad students saw it, anyway. One day a faculty member on the cell and molecular side used the word “archaic” to describe the department’s curriculum. Folks on the organismic side had their own opinions. It was interesting to read that riffs such as this one go back to the 1800s.

Sundberg’s series about the history of botany education is very interesting and I encourage you to read Part One and Part Two.

Some of the references Sundberg refers to throughout his article are available online. Below are links to two of the books. Enjoy!

Gray, Asa. 1858.How Plants Grow: A simple introduction to to structural botany with a popular flora or a description and arrangement of common plants both wild and cultivated. New York: American Book Company.
View online

Henslow, Reverand Professor. 1858. Illustrations to be employed impractical lessons on botany. Adapted to beginners of all classes. Prepared for the South Kensignton Museum. London: Chapman and Hall. View online

Literature Cited
Sundberg, Marshall D. 2012. Botanical education in the United States: Part 2, The nineteenth century – Botany for the masses vs. the professionalization of botany. Plant Science Bulletin. 58(3): 101-131. Fall 2012. Web.
<http://issuu.com/botanicalsocietyofamerica/docs/psbseptember_-_58__3__2012> [accessed 13 September 2012]