Collecting Standards: Teaching Botanical Skills in Sweden, 1850–1950

Abstract

ArgumentStandards of botanical practice in Sweden between 1850 and 1950 were set, not only in schools and universities, but also in naturalist societies and botanical exchange clubs, and were articulated in handbooks and manuals produced for schoolboys. These standards were maintained among volunteer naturalists in the environmental movement in the 1970s, long after the decline and disappearance of collecting from the curriculum. School science provides a link between the laboratory, the classroom, and the norms and practices of everyday life: between the various “insides” and “outsides” of educational and research settings.