PUBLIC APPEAL MADE ON HIS BEHALF. 429 



motion of the president, Professor Struthers, supported by 

 Mr. James Taylor, " as an old friend of thirty-five years," 

 Duncan was cordially elected an honorary member, " as 

 an honour to him, but still more an honour to themselves." 



In all these endeavours to give deserved recognition to 

 a man who, as Professor Struthers then said, had " cultivated 

 science, working at the loom, with the res angustce domi 

 pressing upon him," it is remarkable that the active 

 Edinburgh Botanical Society did not join in bestowing 

 honour on such a student of the science which it is one 

 of its functions to foster. The veteran Professor Balfour, 

 its founder in 1836, who took a warm interest in Duncan, 

 at once brought the matter before the council of the 

 society, with a view to his being elected ; but his motion 

 was overruled in his absence, on the curious plea that 

 Duncan neither was a member of the Society nor had con- 

 tributed to it by paper or otherwise ! Such a rule would 

 for ever preclude any society from honouring even the most 

 distinguished ; and, surely, the sooner it is rescinded, the 

 better for the society and the science it represents. A still 

 more surprising instance of silence, where the earliest and 

 most active efforts might have been and were expected, 

 as was publicly expressed at the time in local journals, 

 with indignant astonishment, was that of the University 

 of Aberdeen, to which the herbarium had been generously 

 and unconditionally gifted by the more than penniless 

 student, but without one thought of fame or reward. But 

 so it was and so has remained. Nothing has been said or 

 done in the matter either by the Faculty most concerned, 

 or by the Senatus that should have supplied its neglect. 



These simple details are given as not only interesting 



