LINN^AN MEMORIAL ADDRESS 257 



great scholar's library by the acquisition of all the standard and 

 many rare books of i^otany. Linnajus was again in the enjoy- 

 ment of great good fortune. Yet all this was not for long. 

 Celsius's very zeal and benevolence on his behalf brought the 

 young man into trouble. By his great influence he procured for 

 Linntcus an examination, which was followed by a license to 

 lecture publicly in the botanic garden. The candidate had not 

 been three years in residence, and Professor Roberg expressed 

 it as his opinion that the precedent was a dangerous one to have 

 established. The lectures were begun, and Linnseus had a 

 throng of students of the best class, among sons of some of the 

 university professors ; and he was now able to clothe himself 

 comfortably. This all happened at a time when a promising 

 instructor. Nils Rosen, had lately gone abroad on a two years' 

 leave, to obtain the doctorate in medicine. A less competent 

 young man had been delegated to take Rosen's work during his 

 absence. Linnjsus, by his superior learning and personal mag- 

 netism, appears quite innocently to have drawn away his sti^- 

 dents. There would be trouble in store for Linnaeus whensoever 

 Rosen should return. It is a sad truth that, in science as else- 

 where in this poor foolish world, the mediocre man in higher 

 position must hate and if possible persecute the superior man in 

 low^er station, and that for his very superiority, if for nothing 

 else. Rosen, on his return from abroad, with the doctor's de- 

 gree won, besought of old Professor Rudbeck permission to 

 teach botany himself, hoping thereby to draw from docent 

 Linnaeus all his students. Rudbeck declined to consider such 

 a proposition, stating frankly that Dr. Rosen was hardly very 

 well prepared to instruct in botany. Rosen's next move was 

 successful. He procured the passage of an official regulation 

 to the effect that no undergraduate should be permitted to lec- 

 ture publicly, to the prejudice of a regularly appointed instruc- 

 tor. Such an instructor there was, in the person of the young 

 man who had been appointed to teach in Rosen's place while he 

 was absent. Thus was Linnasus deprived of the means of liv- 

 ing any longer at Upsala. 



Proc. Wash. Acad. Sci., July, 1907. 



