160 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



on mineralogy ; but that did not meet my wants. I then, in 

 despair of acquiring knowledge nearer home, walked across 

 the country from Boston to Troy, leaving Boston on a 

 Monday afternoon, after bidding good-bye to my friends* 

 and arriving at the Eensselaer School on Saturday night. 

 There I had the pleasure of spending five years of my life 

 as student and teacher and I saw there what could come out 

 of very poor surroundings. We had one building only, a 

 brick building, substantial, to be sure, upon which was 

 painted the sign of the school. Our laboratories for bot- 

 any, for chemistry and for mineralogy and geology were mere 

 sheds, in fact no better than sheds in their external appear- 

 ance. But every one of those students who entered there 

 became imbued with the soul and spirit of science and no 

 student ever came within the influence of Professor Eaton, 

 the principal of the school, who did not come out at the end 

 of his course permeated with the love of and a respect 

 for science and a desire for its advancement. Every 

 lesson or recitation was in the form of an extempo- 

 raneous lecture giving the student's own knowledge of 

 the subject, and not a recitation from books. Even the 

 man whom you have spoken of, the great botanist of our 

 country, Professor Gray, received his first instruction 

 through the influence of the Professor from whom I re- 

 ceived my first instruction at the Rensselaer School; not at 

 the school, but indirectly and elsewhere. And Doctor Tor- 

 rey, who was our greatest botanist, before Dr. Gray, also 

 received his direct instruction from Professor Eaton, the 

 first principal of the Eensselaer School in Troy. 



These, gentlemen, were some of the beginnings of science. 

 It seems a very long way to trace its history from that 

 time, when it was difficult to even acquire the elements of 

 the knowledge of botany, to a period when you have here, 

 from this grand man, a bequest more comprehensive in its 

 purpose than any which has been made in any period of the 

 world's history, I believe I 



Because botany has not been the pursuit of my life, it 



