53— BOTANY AS A SCHOOL-SUBJECT IN SOUTH AFRICA. 



By S. Schonland, Hon. M.A. Oxon., Ph.D., Professor of 

 Botany, Rhodes University College, and Director of the 

 Albany Museum, Graham's Town. 



The attitude of the general public (including the majority of so- 

 called educated people) out here towards the teaching of Botany is 

 very curious, and would be amusing, if it did not concern a matter 

 which I, for one, consider of some importance, both with reference 

 to general education, and even as regards the welfare and prosperity 

 of the country, as I hope to show later on. As a rule, people have 

 an idea that Botany consists in collecting and drying plants, and 

 putting them neatly on sheets of paper, or in counting stamens and 

 such like things ; that the greatest Botanists are those who succeed 

 in getting together the biggest collections, and remember the greatest 

 majority of horrible names, that Botany may therefore be made a 

 hobby for people who have not much else to do, and that as a means 

 of training the minds of young people it is valueless. I need scarcely 

 say that these and similar opinions, current in South Africa, and, I 

 believe, also in England, are based on absolute ignorance of the 

 subject. It is very peculiar that such views should be generally 

 current amongst British people, since the British possess the finest 

 botanical establishment in the world, kept up at an enormous cost. 

 I refer, of course, to Kew Gardens, with its Museums, Herbarium 

 Research Laboratory, and Library, and since also the researches of the 

 British Botanists of the present day do not suffer in comparison wuh 

 the work of the Botanists of any other nation ; and, if we go back 

 in the history of Science amongst European nations, we find that 

 ever since the revival of true scientific work, the English Botanists 

 have to a remarkable extent contributed towards the development of 

 their Science, just as in other Sciences the work of Englishmen also 

 can be traced as sign-posts in their development. 



A few examples, taken at random, will prove my statement as 

 regards Botany. Shortly after Francis Bacon, about the beginning of 

 the 17th Century, had pointed out that the only true way of studying 

 nature consists in going straight to nature and asking her questions by 

 means of observation and experiments, we find that the Oxford 

 Botanic Garden was established (1632), one of the earliest establish- 

 ments of its kind. Several of the earlier Professors, notably 

 Morrison and Dillenius, left their mark on the science of Botany. 

 Robert Hooke, who lived from 1635-1703, made considerable 

 improvement in the construction of the compound microscope, and 

 became incidentally the father of Vegetable Anatomv, which, during 

 his lifetime, had a distinguished exponent in the person of Nehemiah 

 Grew. In the 17th century England could also boast of John Ray, 

 who first attempted a natural classification of plants, previous 

 attempts in this direction having been of the crudest. He also made 

 valuable investigations into the nutrition of plants and the movement 

 of sap, and these were followed up by Stephen Hales (1677-1761); 

 but Sachs states, in his History of Botany, published in 1875, that 



