LECTURE ROOMS AND LABORATORIES 



'Twas primarily founded for a Nursery of Simples and that a Professor 

 of Botanicey should read there, and show the use and virtue of them to his 

 Auditors. WOOD. 



Sine experientia nihil sufficienter sciri potest. R. BACON. 



Botany classes, like everything else, have their periods of 

 maxima and minima. The King's Botanic Professor for his 

 ^40 was to read, not according to statute, hut at such time 

 as he thought most proper that is, in Spring and Autumn. 

 Dr. Morison was well attended in the open air. 



According to Dr. Tatham* (1810) 



" The Botanical Lecture, which possesses every advantage that very 

 munificent benefactions can bestow, I have known attended some years 

 ago, before this chilling Statute [the Public Examination Statute] nipt all 

 the shoots and blossoms of good learning, by a most respectable class of 

 more than sixty persons. It has, however, so much dwindled and de- 

 clined, that some years the Professor has not of late been able to muster a 

 class at all ; and when he has been so fortunate, that class has not 

 amounted to a third of that number : although he is able and diligent, 

 and has made a most liberal sacrifice of the lucrative profession of a 

 Physician to this Academical Office of Professor of Botany ; after the 

 example of his very learned and public-spirited predecessor [Sibthorp], 

 who was so devoted to that useful and delightful branch of learning, that 

 he increased the stipend by a liberal benefaction." 



Dr. Daubeny drew well when he lectured on Agricultural 

 Chemistry, but only scantily with his Geographical Distribution 

 of Plants t ; but among the few students was John Ruskin. 



* Tatham, E., " A new Address to the Free and Independent Members 

 of Convocation." Oxford, 1 8 10. 



f At a somewhat later period " We had, it is true, a Professor of 

 Botany, but he might have resided at Botany Bay for anything we saw or 

 knew of him" (S. R. Hole of B.N.C., 1840-44). But the impression 



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