16 HOWARD S. REED 



tists of two score years ago we must remember that the labora- 

 tories of today did not then exist, especially in the young inland 

 universities. Even on the seacoast the " laboratories " were more 

 likely to be small rooms adjoining the herbarium cases in which 

 collections of dried plants were taken for study and classification. 

 Furthermore, science was hardly recognized as worthy of a place 

 in the curriculum, by either students or faculty. Professor 

 Spalding was the leader of a small, but determined group of sci- 

 entists which fought for years before they succeeded in having 

 work in the natural sciences recognized as equal'in educational 

 value to classics and worthy of the same diploma. 



A vivid picture of his early laboratory and its work has fortu- 

 nately been given by Professor Spalding himself: 



Twenty-five years ago, in one of our northern universities, a young 

 instructor with a single assistant was engaged in the rather comprehen- 

 sive task of teaching botany and biology. The botany consisted in 

 part in the analysis of flowering plants by means of Gray's "Manual," 

 and in studying the minute anatomy of leaves, stems, and other parts 

 of plants, which the literary students studied under the name of structu- 

 ral botany, while, with a strong flavor of crude drugs, it was admin- 

 istered to the pharmacy class engaged in the study of adulterants. 



As for the books used, the " Centralblatt " was not in existence, but 

 this mattered little, for neither was the enormous literature it has since 

 recorded. The "Botanische Zeitung" was regularly published, but 

 the library committee had no use for it, and much the same was true of 

 most of the periodicals that every working botanist now finds indis- 

 pensable; but we had Sachs's "Text-book of Botany" and the big 

 picture book of LeMaout and Decaisne, and on the shelves were Sulli- 

 vants' "Icones Muscorum" and dear old Berkeley, and Cooke's "Brit- 

 ish Fungi," with all their impossibilities, and last but not least, the 

 reports of the government microscopist, of which we cannot speak 

 particularly. 



The rest of the outfit was in keeping. Microscopes, of a certain sort, 

 there were, but no other apparatus. Razors were sharpened on a well- 

 hacked strap, iodine and sulphuric acid constituted the reagents and 

 the enthusiasm of fellow adventurers in an unknown country kept up 

 the courage of young men and women who walked by faith and saw but 

 little. 



