ASA GRAY. 329 



Gray's work as a teacher extended over a period of more than fifty 

 years, dating from the first lectures on botany at the Fairfield Medical 

 School, in 1831 and 1832, and the publication of his " Elements of 

 Botany," in 1836. During that period he trained up a whole race of 

 botanists, now scattered through all parts of the United States, so that 

 wherever he went he was greeted by those who remembered his instruc- 

 tion with pleasure. When at Santa Barbara in 1885, an elderly man, 

 who seemed to be about his own age, introduced himself as a former pupil 

 in his first class at Harvard. As a college lecturer he was not seen at 

 his best, for his somewhat hesitating manner when he spoke extempora- 

 neously was unfavorably contrasted with the fervid, almost impetuous 

 utterance of Agassiz, and the clear exposition and dignified address of 

 Jeffries Wyman, his two great contemporaries at Harvard. In his public 

 addresses he always spoke from notes, and, especially in his later years, 

 his strikingly expressive face commanded the attention of his hearers from 

 the start. In the class-room he was personally much liked, and he 

 made a strong impression on the majority of students, although, in the 

 days when every student was forced to study botany, there were of 

 course some who would not have cared for the subject under any cir- 

 cumstances. The instruction, as was natural, bearing in mind his own 

 early training and the state of botany in this country at the time when 

 he became Professor at Harvard, was confined mainly to the morpho- 

 logical study of flowering plants ; for he recognized that, until some ad- 

 vance had been made in that direction, it was out of the question dealing 

 adequately with the more technically complicated subjects of histology, 

 embryology, and physiology. 



For the instruction which he was obliged to give, the resources of the 

 Garden and Herbarium and the ordinary college lecture-rooms at first 

 sufficed, but at last it became necessary to provide a special laboratory 

 and lecture-room at the Garden. A liberal friend of Dr. Gray and the 

 College presented a sum of money for this purpose, and in 1872 a wing 

 was added to the Herbarium. About this time the demand for labora- 

 tory instruction and equipment increased rapidly, and the new lecture- 

 room and laboratory were soon found to be inadequate to meet the 

 needs of the increasing calls for microscopic and physiological work, 

 and they were at length abandoned. It is not surprising that Dr. Gray 

 could not foresee how great the growth in this direction was to be, 

 even in his own life. Probably no person of his age could have 

 foreseen it. 



His Herbarium was, at one period or another, the resort of nearly all 

 the active working botanists of the country, and thither came many 



