~ i8 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
PRorEssoR ENDLICHER. 
[A.recent number of the * Allgemeine Zeitung’ gives the following 
particulars relative to the lamented Stephen Endlicher, whose death, 
as is well known, took place in April last, at Vienna.—Eb. 
“There is a very prevalent report, which may, perhaps, also reach 
your ears: it is said that Professor Endlicher has poisoned himself. 
There is not one word of truth in this rumour. He predicted, firmly, 
three years ago, at the death-bed of his friend Professor Lippich, that 
he would sink under the same malady. But the source of this report 
is a very deplorable one. Endlicher lived in very embarrassed circum- 
stances ;—I mean not for a moment to assert that he is a sacrifice to 
_our former educational system! According to this system, scientific 
efforts were valued, only, according to the numerical amount of lecture 
hours; and, since it was only during summer that Endlicher gave 
lectures as professor of botany, his salary was but 1,5004; if free 
quarters and all other things be added to it, the total amount would be 
3,0008. A man like Endlicher, of European celebrity, whose name was 
one of the greatest ornaments to the University, was valued at the rate 
of 3,000f.,—a sum which a professor in Germany would derive from 
fees alone! But he was so much animated by that honourable zeal 
and activity which leads to distinction in this world, that he involved 
himself in debt for the sake of science. He collected an Herbarium, 
and presented it to the Imperial Museum: he had made a fount of 
Chinese types, and presented it to the national printing establishment : 
he published expensive works at his own eost, and presented them to the 
literary world. As inheritor to the post which the Jacquins had occu- 
pied, he purchased their excellent botanical library, to secure it to 
Austria. Nay, in order that the only point of union for men of talent, 
natives as well as foreigners, which the wealthy Vienna has to boast of, 
might not be interrupted, he kept up Jacquin’s evening soirées at his 
own cost—at the cost of a poor professor! To support all these 
objects Endlicher had no more than the bare 1,5001. ; and yet people lift 
their hands with astonishment at the spectacle of a titled professor 
dying in debt, instead of folding them in sorrow over that state of things 
which left a professor no alternative in Austria, provided he intended 
to shine in his science. Let us, however, indulge the hope that a system 
which scarcely spends as much for the maintenance of all the nine 
