ELIAS MAGNUS FRIES 



Those who have read after me have perhaps good reason to think 

 that I am not much of a hero-worshiper. But I bow very humbly 

 at the shrine of Elias Fries. We all admire men who accomplish 

 their objects in the world, men who do good and practical work, and 

 Elias Fries, in my opinion, did more effective work in mycology than 

 all others combined, since the days of Persoon. The chief point of 

 excellence in Fries' work was that it was systematic. First he learned 

 his subject thoroughly, then he wrote practical books that enabled 

 others to learn it. I am not informed as to other branches of natural 

 history, but I question if any other branch has as complete, as thor- 

 ough, as accurate a hand-book as the mycologists have in Fries' Hy- 

 menomycetes Europaei. 1 



When Fries began his work, Persoon had almost finished his, and 

 the work of Persoon was the foundation on which Fries built. All 

 during his life Fries was the undisputed authority in mycology, and 

 he molded mycological opinion throughout the world. His system 

 of classification, which is a slight modification of Persoon's, has lasted 

 down to our day, and is in general use now. More than one system 

 has been proposed for the purpose of displacing Fries, but with little 

 success, and it is a question if an}- is, on the whole, superior to that 

 of Fries. I do not claim that Fries' is final, that it is not possible to 

 modify to advantage some of his genera, but I think that Fries' sys- 

 tem in the main will not be displaced in our generation. The specific 

 descriptions of Fries are models of accuracy and conciseness, and 

 have been extensively copied and translated. Fries seems to have 

 had the happy faculty of selecting just the right words to characterize 

 his species. 



THE LIFE OF FRIES 



When I was in Sweden I made inquiries as to the events in the 

 life of Fries, and while I shall not go into minute details, I will sum- 

 marize some of the leading points. 



Fries was born on the i5th day of August, 1794. His father was 

 a dean of the established church of Sweden in a little, remote coun- 

 try district, called Femsjo, and it was there that Elias Fries was born. 

 The elder Fries was a man of liberal education, well fitted to fill a 

 more important post than a remote country parish, but he was 

 assigned there when a young man, there he married and there he 

 passed his life. Elias Fries tells us in one of his books that it was 

 habitual with his father to speak in the Latin language with him, 

 and the thorough familiarity of Elias Fries with Latin was due no 

 doubt to his early training. The elder Fries also instructed his son 



When in a recent article I referred to mycological literature as largely composed of 

 errors, inaccuracies and mistakes, I most assuredly did not refer to Fries' Hymenomvcetes 

 Europaei. But the word "accurate," even as referring to Fries' book, is used only relatively 

 as compared to most of the mycological " literature." 



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