282 The Plant World. 



The University of Wisconsin is further justifying con- 

 temporary f udgment as to its place in the fore-front of American 

 State Universities by the erection of a new biological building, 

 42 by 240 feet in size, with four stories and a basement, and with 

 facilities for regulation of environmental conditions. There 

 are to be six greenhouses and rooms for studying the effect of 

 different light on plants and for the investigation of other prob- 

 lems in plant physiology, in addition to ample provision for 

 modern zoological work. It is a pleasure to think of the ad- 

 mirable facilities provided at one or more neighboring state 

 universities for advanced work in the humanities and in certain 

 physical sciences and in professional lines, but the old fire-traps 

 in which some of the ablest specialists in zoology and botany in 

 the country are still compelled to conduct investigation and give 

 instruction are, to say the least, an anomaly in what are under- 

 stood to be progressive institutions of the twentieth century. 



That scientific training — and not only this, but training in 

 biological conceptions and methods — is good for that class of 

 people whose heads are apt to be in the clouds, with no certain 

 relation to the earth, is exemplified in the case of Professor 

 William James of Harvard, who more than most philosophers, 

 kept his feet on terra fir ma and talked intelligible English. Re- 

 ceiving his early education in the Lawrence Scientific School, a 

 pupil of Agassiz, whom he accompanied on one at least of his 

 expeditions, a graduate of the Harvard Medical School, and for 

 some time a teacher of human physiology, his thought was 

 characterized by a clearness and directness that can hardly be 

 looked for on the part of those who attempt to develop philo- 

 sophical systems without first coming in contact with the real- 

 ities that are inevitably encountered in the practical study of 

 such a subject as physiology. It is said that he took special 

 interest in ' ' obdurate details. ' ' Would there were more like him ! 



