ASA GRAY. 331 



graceful style, with the different topics clearly and methodically ar- 

 ranged. The vigorous defence of the natural system of classification, 

 which now appears superfluous, indicates that the author of 1836 was a 

 progressive young man, who had shaken off the conservatism which pre- 

 vailed among American botanists of that period. That he was young 

 and inexperienced is occasionally shown, as in the amusing statement 

 that " the herbarium of a diligent botanist will pass so frequently under 

 his observation that any very extensive ravages [by insects] can hardly 

 take place without his being aware of it in time to check the progress of 

 the destroyers." He evidently had no conception of how large his own 

 collection would become in a few years. 



The " Elements" of 1836 developed into the "Botanical Text-Book" 

 of 1842, in which the portion relating to systematic botany was much 

 more fully treated than in the earlier volume. The later editions, 

 which appeared at intervals until 1879, are familiar to every one, for 

 they have been the means of opening the world of botany to more than 

 one generation of American botanists. In 1868 the " Lehrbuch der 

 Botanik," by Sachs, appeared. That work was a genuine revelation, 

 showing the advance which had been made by experts in the science 

 of botany, and, although somewhat above the capacity of the common 

 student, it was destined to produce in a few years a revolution in the 

 method of botanical instruction. 



Recognizing the new era which had opened in botany, Dr. Gray re- 

 vised the plan of the " Text-Book," with a view of bringing it into accord 

 with the more widely developed science of the day, and in 1879 issued 

 the first volume of the revised work, in which he included the Mor- 

 phology of Phasnogams, Taxonomy, and Phytography, thus covering 

 the greater part of the ground of the original " Text-Book," intrusting to 

 his colleague, Professor Goodale, the volume on Physiological Botany, 

 which appeared in 1885 as worthy companion of its predecessor, and to 

 the writer the volume on Cryptogams. He hoped, but hardly could have 

 expected, to write a fourth volume, on the Orders of Phasnogamous 

 Plants. It is deeply to be regretted that he was never able to write 

 this volume, for it would have enabled him to present the general views 

 on classification derived from a long and exceptionally rich experience. 

 No better text-book on the subject had ever been written in the Eng- 

 lish language than Gray's "Text-book" in the original form; and, 

 although botanical instruction is now very different from what it used 

 to be, it is still true that, as an introduction to the study of Phaenogams, 

 the group to which beginners naturally turn their attention, the later 

 "Structural Botany" is likely to hold its own for some time to come. 



