INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 79 



and nutritious have quite as frequently been allowed to go 

 unused, from ignorance, when wholesome food has been 

 much needed. 



The relation of botany to the fine arts need not be dwelt 

 upon further than to say that some of the most attractive 

 decorative designs are obtained from leaves, flowers and 

 fruit. The prevalent tendency toward naturalism in decora- 

 tive art finds encouragement and elevation in the close study 

 of flowers and foliage that is made in the laboratory ; while 

 the minute structure of the higher plants, and the vegetative 

 and reproductive organs of many of the cryptogams, as 

 viewed under the microscope, suggest untold combinations 

 of new features, of surprising elegance and beauty. In true 

 art, even more than its practical applications, a familiarity 

 with detail is often essential to success ; and the artist whose 

 landscapes and forest studies fail in fidelity in their presen- 

 tation of the habit of trees, cannot hope for success in this 

 direction, however brilliant he maybe in execution. What 

 an accurate knowledge of anatomy is to the painter of the 

 human figure or of animals, a working familiarity with the 

 bark, spray and leaf forms of trees is to the still-life 

 student. 



In the directions that have been thus imperfectly outlined, 

 I have endeavored to show how broad the field for botan- 

 ical instruction is, and it is not difficult to single out those 

 lines which promise to result in much good if faithfully 

 prosecuted. But instruction is by no means all of educa- 

 tion, and far from all of university life proper ; and it must 

 not be forgotten that the School of Botany is organized as 

 a University branch. To quote again from the address of 

 Sir Lyon Playfair : — 



Universities are not mere storehouses of knowledge ; they are also 

 conservatories for its cultivation. Professors in a university have a 

 higher function, because they ought to make new honey as well as to 

 store it. The widening of the bounds of knowledge, literary or scion- 



