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JOURNAL OF 



THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 



Vol. 6 February, 1904 No. 62 



RECOLLECTIONS OF CHARLES CHRISTOPHER FROST. 

 Elizabeth B. Davenport. 



(With portrait.) 

 (Read at the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Vermont Botanical Club.) 



The recent transfer of the valued herbarium of Mr. C. C. Frost to 

 the University of Vermont makes it fitting at this time and place that 

 something should be said regarding the personal history of this keen 

 but modest botanist. I have been asked to tell you what I have 

 known of him during many years' residence in Brattleboro, where he 

 lived and worked. 



To-day the world is alert and on every hand interested in scientific 

 inquiry. Even our smaller communities are penetrated by the spirit 

 of research, and the student may have the stimulation and inspiration 

 of daily companionship with those who share his special interests. 

 Some of you will, however, remember the small New England village 

 of thirty years ago, will recall its relative simplicity not only in the out- 

 ward mode of living but in its intellectual activity, and can picture the 

 still simpler life which prevailed two or three decades earlier. The 

 centre of all culture was essentially the home. The literary club, the 

 lyceum, extensive and well selected libraries, and carefully arranged 

 museums, which are now multiplying throughout our country, were 

 then relatively rare. The atmosphere was not one to stimulate 

 research. The impulse must in those days have come much more 

 from natural aptitude, and to persons of character strong enough to 

 take the initiative, to men who might be leaders. 



To have known Mr. Frost as he was and to have seen the high 

 character of his intellectual attainments notwithstanding the limita- 

 tions of his environment, makes one long to have known him as he 



