14 EAELY DAYS 



cottagers. On the first excursion on which I was taken, 

 when a boy, to Loch Lomond, there was no inn at Tarbet, 

 and we all slept there in our clothes, on heather spread on the 

 floor of a cottage ; on another occasion when I was allowed 

 to join the party (more for fishing than for botanising) on an 

 excursion to Killin, we walked the whole way from the head 

 of Loch Lomond along the old mihtary road made in the 

 previous century by General Wade, eulogised in the well- 

 known distich : 



If you'd seen these roads "Before they were made, 



You'd have lift up your hands and blessed General Wade^ 



If I were asked what I regarded as of most importance to 

 the student in the manner of my father's teaching as sketched 

 above, I would answer that it taught the art of exact observa- 

 tion and reasoning therefrom, a schooling of inestimable 

 value for the medical man, and one that is given in no other 

 profession, but which ought to come, in this country, as it 

 does in Germany, early in the education of every child. 

 I have met many of my father's pupils abroad, in India, and 

 the colonies, who have told me that these botanical lectures 

 gave them the first ideas they had ever entertained of there 

 being a natural classification of the members of the vegetable 

 kingdom. Then with regard to the results, in a botanical 

 point of view, the magnetism of the lecturer and the interest 

 of the subject imbued many of his pupils with a love of science 

 that proved permanent and fruitful. They made observa- 

 tions and collections for their quondam professor in the tem- 

 perate or tropical cHm^ates of both hemispheres, some of 

 them throughout their lives, which have very largely con- 

 tributed to a knowledge of the flora and vegetable resources 

 of the globe. 



Not only was Sir WiUiam Hooker a great teacher and 

 administrator, but a most prolific writer. His writings were 

 unequalled in the number and accuracy of the plates with 

 which they were illustrated. The number of these his son 

 estimated at 8000, of which 1800 were from hisown drawings. 

 His systematic work covered a wide range, and, apart from 

 its intrinsic value, has a pecuUar interest here in its relation 

 to the systematic work of his son. His publications on the 



