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Rhodora [JANUARY 
Upon graduation from college, with the class of 1866, he decided 
to make Botany his life-work. This subject was still, at least in 
America, chiefly the pursuit of ministers, such as the Rev. Francis 
Wolle and the Rev. M. A. Curtis, or of practitioners of medicine. 
Acting upon Dr. Gray's advice *to study medicine first. because 
the possibility of gaining a living by Botany was so small that one 
should always have a regular profession to fall back upon," he spent 
the next four years in the Harvard Medical School, receiving the 
degree of M. D. in 1870. Dr. Gray, who already appreciated Dr. 
Farlow’s genius, at once gave him an assistantship. This enabled 
him to begin that study of the lower plants which was to be his main 
interest for nearly fifty years. From 1870 to 1872, he worked on 
the collections of cryptogams at the Gray Herbarium and gave some 
instruction in Cryptogamic Botany. This work, however, made him 
realize the deficiencies in his knowledge, and in 1872 he decided to 
go to Europe for further study, there being no opportunities at that 
time in the United States. 
In 1872, Anton DeBary had recently opened a laboratory for ad- 
vanced students in the reorganized University of Strasburg. DeBary 
had reached the height of his fame through his researches on the 
development and methods of reproduction of the Algae and Fungi. 
A brilliant band of students gathered around him, and it is fair to 
say that Dr. Farlow was one of the most gifted of these. From De- 
Bary, Dr. Farlow acquired as thorough a knowledge of the fungi as 
it was possible to get at that time, and he also received valuable 
training in the technical manipulation of material, which must al- 
ways play an important part in the study of micro-organisms. From 
Strasburg he went to Geneva to study the lichens with J. Mueller; 
and to Antibes on the Mediterranean coast of France, where he had 
the rare privilege of studying marine algae with Bornet and Thuret. 
In addition to these months of study, he travelled extensively, meet- 
ing many noted botanists, with whom he afterwards maintained a 
lasting friendship and an active correspondence. His letters written 
to Dr. Gray during this period are full of interesting comments on 
the botany and the botanists of the day. 
The reaction against the almost exclusive attention to systematic 
botany during the century following Linnaeus was in full swing in 
Germany. Like most such movements it was being carried too far 
there, just as it has been in many of our American institutions during 
