OHIO STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 20 
the form of published handbooks; and further that it has 
possessed, and still possesses, a large literature issued in 
periodical form and covering the multitudinous phases of 
the subject in question. 
Has plant pathology meanwhile assumed the coordinate 
rank herein indicated along with plant physiology and 
ecology? I fear we must answer negatively in so far as 
college professorships and university courses are concerned. 
Aside from the few universities which offer rather brief. 
undergraduate courses in “Vegetable Pathology” or in 
“Plant Diseases,” most, or I might say all, American univer- 
sity and college courses offered by well developed botanical 
departments consisting of two or more chairs in botany, are 
silent on this subject. 
If the elements of the subject are taught at all they are 
either presented under plant physiology or the systematic 
study of fungi, and it is notable that in America’s oldest 
and largest university this division of botany is not recog- 
nized as existing. Professor Ward, to whom reference has 
already been made, responds in a recent letter that his work 
in plant diseases is all research work and that he offers no 
separate course upon the subject. 
It is easy to understand that up to a recent time no well 
formulated call had been made for students equipped in 
this line, and that, therefore, no demand existed for courses. 
in plant pathology, but certainly the recent expansion in 
experiment station work, and in that of the United States. 
Department of Agriculture, no longer leaves this position 
tenable. The writer has sometimes wondered whether we 
have in this tardiness to apply botany in vegetable pathology 
a sort of unwillingness, or reluctance to place applied sci- 
ence upon a coordinate basis with pure science. Many 
are aware how relentless was the opposition of the repre- 
sentatives of the old education to putting engineering, or 
applied science courses upon the same basis as the arts 
course for graduation. Indeed, if | am not mistaken, cer- 
tain institutions still discriminate against graduates in engi- 
neering. Seeing that all this is history, and noting that 
