76 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
university curriculum of medical study, but the recognition to such 
an extent of the fundamental character of the problems of plant- 
life, that it is now introduced into the requirements of the colleges. 
But if the old taxonomic teaching was stifled by its nomen- 
clature, there is, it seems to me, a similar element of danger in 
our modern teaching, lest it be strangled by its terminology. 
The same causes are operative as of old. The same tendency to 
narrowing of the field of vision, which eventuates in mistaking 
the name for the thing, is apparent. With the ousting of 
taxonomy, and as the Jaboratory replaced the garden and museum, 
the compound microscope succeeded the hand-lens, and for the 
paraphernalia of the systematist came the stains, reagents, and 
apparatus of microscopical and experimental work as the equip- 
ment necessary for the study of plants, the inwards rather than 
the outwards of plants have come to form the bulk of the subject- 
matter of cur teaching, and we are concerned now more with the 
stone and mortar than with the general architecture and plan 
of the fabric; we ave inclined to elaborate the minute details of 
a part at the expense of its relation to the whole organism, and 
discuss the technique of a function more in the light of an 
illustration of certain chemical and physical changes than as a 
vital phenomenon of importance to the plant and its surroundings. 
This mechanical attitude is quite a natural growth. It is a 
consequence of specialisation, and it is reflected in our research, 
But it must be counteracted if botany is in the future to be 
aught else than an academic study, as it was of old an elegant 
accomplishment. It has come about very much because of that 
want of recognition by botanists, to which I have already referred, 
of the natural outlets of their study—of their failure so far to 
see the lines through which the subject touches the national life. 
Modern botany has not yet found in this country its full applica- 
tion. It has not yet rendered the State service as it ought, and 
as was done by the taxonomic teaching it supplanted. 
It is from this point of view that I wish to point out to you 
to-day that through forestry—and although I have particularly 
dealt with this branch of Rural Economy, what I say is equally 
true of horticulture and agriculture—modern botanical study 
should find a sphere of application by which it may contribute 
to our national well-being, and which would have a directive 
influence upon its teaching, taking it out of the groove in which 
it tends to run. What we botanists need to do in this connection 
