62 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. - 



was kept up, after a fashion, for some years, but the 

 society faded out and the land was sold, and apparently 

 there was an end of the academy. But under the law of 

 the survival of the fittest, Dr. Engelmann <' survived " and 

 became an academy of science in himself. In the midst of 

 professional cares, as a successful and highly honored 

 physician, he made botany his darling pursuit. By corre- 

 spondence, by contribution of carefully prepared articles 

 for journals of science in this country and Europe, by per- 

 sonally visiting different regions in the West and South, he 

 prosecuted his studies and became known in schools of 

 science everywhere, taking an acknowledged place among 

 distinguished names. So quietly and modestly did he 

 work that few persons in St. Louis knew how much he was 

 doing, but for many years before his decease he had found 

 cordial welcome in the " Missouri Botanical Garden," 

 where his real merit was known and cordially appreciated. 

 It is a pleasant thing for us to learn that his writings, now 

 scattered over the world and inaccessible, will be collected 

 and edited by Dr. Asa Gray and other competent hands to 

 be suitably published, with illustrative plates, a large and 

 costly work, for which Mr. Henry Shaw has generously 

 guaranteed the funds. I also hope that Dr. Engelmann's 

 exceptionally valuable herbariums, the systematic collection 

 of a lifetime, nowunder the control of his son, will form apart 

 of the accessible riches of the Henry Shaw School of Botany. 

 Taking into account, therefore, the fact that we have an 

 Engelmann Professorship established, together with other 

 associations already named, may I not Justly say that there 

 is a connecting link between those feeble efforts of early 

 days and the larger promise of our present undertaking? 

 Thus giving proof of the universal truth, that no earnest 

 and persistent effort in good work is ever permanently lost. 



I have now the honor of introducing to you Mr. William 

 Trelease, Engelmann Professor in the Henry Shaw School 

 of Botany. 



