770 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS. 



collection, he save not ouly much of his time aud thought, but also an 

 actual sum of money, which comes well up in the thousands, and, to 

 crown all, manifested his devotion to the welfare and perpetnation of 

 the collection by bequeathing to the university for its support the 

 royalties on his publications. 



The Garden during his administration was improved by the addition 

 of several greenhouses, in which were cultivated a choice selection of 

 exotics, aud the rather limited space of the Garden itself was filled with 

 good representatives of the flora of the temperate regions, the collec- 

 tion of eompositw being especially important. In the absence of a suf- 

 ficient endowment, activity on the part of the director had to replace the 

 want of money, and he, utilizing the means at hand, succeeded in mak- 

 ing the Garden an exceedingly important means of exchange between 

 foreign establishments aud our own botanists and collectors. European 

 botanists who visited the Garden wondered how, from such a small and 

 ill-endowed establishment, so much had been done in aid of other insti- 

 tutions. The explanation lay in the skill and energy of Dr. Gray 

 himself. 



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

 years, dating from the first lectures on botany at the Fairtield 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 rembered 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 wjien he spoke extempora- 

 neously was unfavorably contrasted \^ ith the fervid, almost impetuous 

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

 Jefiries Wyman, his two great contemporaries at Harvard. In his jmblic 

 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 classroom he was personally much liked, aud 

 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 deal- 

 ing adequately with the more technically complicated subjects of his- 

 tology, end)ryology, aiul physiology. 



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

 the garden and the herbarium and the ordinary college lecture-l'ooms 



