600 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1918. 



to his friend the Rev. J. D. La Touche, dated May 24, 1893. 

 He says : 



You must not think that I oppose education of the laboring classes, but I 

 should like it conducted toward the future life of the average, and not to the 

 high education of the few who can profit by the complex education of the board 

 schools. Mind you, I am just as much against the higher school and college 

 education of the masses of the upper classes. Surely it would be far better 

 if much of their teaching were devoted to making them more useful members 

 of society. * * * To return to technical education, my notion of it is that 

 it should be begun early, at the expense of some of the board's literature, 

 classical English, etc., and be accompanied throughout by semi-scientific teach- 

 ing; i. e., the cobbler should be taught what tanning is, what bristles are, and 

 how developed, and so forth. If any board school child shows a genius for the 

 higher education, push him on by all means to school and college ; but it is 

 no use trying to " make silk purses out of sows' ears." 



From his earliest days onwards, Hooker shrank from public 

 speaking; he disliked lecturing, and never held a professorial post. 

 He detested newspaper discussions as well as the pomps and vanities 

 of official ceremony. They all seemed to him as using up the time 

 and strength which he ought to give to his one purpose — the increase 

 of science. His natural and strong determination was to the most 

 thorough and strenuous work in pure scientific investigation. He 

 desired no popularity, but cared only for intimacy with and ap- 

 proval by the select few who were able to participate in his scien- 

 tific work and thought, or were bound to him by long association. 

 He was a man of the family, not a man of society. Nevertheless 

 his long life, his high position, and wide-reaching activities brought 

 to him a vast number of acquaintances, inspired by admiration and 

 affection for his kindly, frank, and energetic character. With his 

 children and numerous family connections he found relaxation and 

 refreshment in music and dancing and in reading works of fiction and 

 romance. He became an enthusiastic admirer and collector of Wedg- 

 wood ware, and fully indulged in the collector's joy of picking up 

 good pieces in the shops of second-hand dealers. He retained from 

 early life the habit of constant, regular, and uninterrupted work, 

 and the simplest tastes in regard to food. He attributed his long 

 life and the preservation of his health and mental power (as he said 

 to the writer, who visited him on his ninetieth birthday) to the fact 

 that he had made it his practice throughout his life to dine in the 

 middle of the day, drinking only a light wine, and to take nothing 

 but a light tea in the evening. 



Hooker was, it is true, fortunate in his friends — fortunate because 

 he merited such fortune. We read in these volumes of their passing 

 away one by one — until he at last was left alone, but not downcast. 

 His mind, to the end, was full of happy memories, and he still had 

 new plants to describe and was tended by his wife and interested 



