HIS BOTANICAL TEACHING 13 



to the fact that the botanical class was in a great measure 

 ancillary to that of Materia Medica, a practical know- 

 ledge of which latter subject was at that time required 

 of candidates for a medical degree, diploma, or licence 

 by, I believe, all the examining bodies in the United 

 Kingdom. 



Now the Glasgow students of botany were, with a few 

 exceptions, preparing themselves for the medical profession, 

 and a considerable proportion of them at that time looked 

 forward to service in the army, navy, India, and the colonies, 

 where they would be thrown on their own resources for 

 ascertaining the quality of their drugs, which had either under- 

 gone a long voyage from England or had to be replaced by 

 such substitutes as the practitioner's knowledge of botany 

 might enable him to discover. The professor hence devoted 

 much time to teaching the botanical characters of the 

 principal medical and economic plants. To this end he made 

 large coloured drawings of them in flower, fruit, etc., which 

 were hung in the class-room when the natural orders to which 

 they belonged were being demonstrated, and he passed round 

 dried specimens of them taken from his herbarium, or living 

 ones from the garden when they were to be had, together 

 with samples of the drugs or other products which they 

 yielded. 



It remains to allude to the class excursions, which have 

 always been, and still happily are, a prominent feature of the 

 botanical teaching in the Scottish Universities. Of these 

 there were three : two, on Saturdays, were habitually to 

 Campsie Glen and Bowling Bay respectively. The third, 

 which was eagerly looked forward to by the most ardent of 

 the students, took place at the end of June. It was to some 

 good botanising ground in the Western Highlands. As many 

 as thirty students have taken part in these larger excursions, 

 each provided with as small a kit as possible, a vasculum, and 

 apparatus for drying plants. They were often accompanied 

 by students from Edinburgh, and sometimes by eminent 

 botanists, British and foreign. In those days there were few 

 inns in the Western Highlands, and fewer coaches, and the 

 roads were bad. On one of my father's first excursions he 

 provided a marquee to hold the party, which was transported 

 in a Dutch wagon drawn by a Highland pony ; and for 

 suppHes the party depended on the flocks and fowls of the 



