March i, 1917J 



NATURE 



Many of these are endeavouring- to make the 

 greater India lang^uages fit vehicles for the im- 

 parting of scientific teaching. For example, the 

 \'angiya Sahitya Parisat, a learned society in 

 Calcutta, has for some fifteen years past been 

 compiling a vocabulary of chemical and botanical 

 terminology in the vernacular. This is a task in 

 which the help of Western scholars is plainly 

 required, lest there should be misunderstandings 

 and overlapping of effort. So is it also in the 

 field of comparative philology, in which native 

 students are apt to ignore the acquisitions of 

 Western scholarship. 



Finally, H.M. the King was happily inspired 

 in suggesting that the pupils of the school may 

 hereafter be "teachers of unselfish government 

 and civilised commerce." Scholarship and science 

 should be disinterested, while commerce should be 

 a loyal and friendly exchange to the benefit of both 

 parties to the transaction. It was, once more, 

 time that the great City of London should recog- 

 nise that a sound and scientific knowledge of 

 Asiatic and African languages, literary and other, 

 is a necessary part of the extension of British 

 influence in lands where our sole object is to 

 improve the social and physical condition of races 

 which have fallen behind our own standard of 

 civilisation. 



At the opening of the school the King was accom- 

 panied by the Queen and Princess Mary. On arriving 

 at the school their Majesties were received by Lord and 

 Lady Curzon and Sir John Hewett, chairman of the 

 governing body. The opening ceremony took place in 

 the libraPk, where Sir John Hewett, addressing the 

 King, said they took the King's presence as a sign that 

 his Majesty was fully cognisant of the importance to 

 the Empire of the study of Oriental and African lan- 

 guages and civilisations on a scale which Great Britain, 

 alone among great countries of the world interested 

 in the East, had not hitherto regarded as necessary ; 

 and they had planned that the school should be at least 

 equal to the Oriental schools in foreign capitals, and 

 adequate to Imperial needs. 



The King, in the course of his reply, said : " I am 



ad to be the patron of the School of Oriental 



adies, and it gives me particular gratification to take 



art to-day in the ceremony of opening this fine 



uilding in which the school is henceforth to carry 



on its work. 



" I cannot sufficiently emphasise the wide scope and 

 vast importance of that work. The school will afford 

 fresh opportunities of studv to those services which 

 have been the pioneer of progress and the instrum.ent 

 of good government in India and Egypt. It will 

 furnish with a fuller technical equipment the pioneers 

 of commerce and industry who in each successive 

 generation undertake the dut\- of upholding the 

 honoured fame of British trade in the East. Its work 

 will serve to develop the sympathy which already so 

 happilv exists between my subjects and those of my 

 Far Eastern ally, Japan. But more than this is to 

 be looked for from the school. 



"If it happily succeeds in imparting to the pupils 

 sent out as teachers of unselfish government and 

 civilised commerce a clearer comprehension of the 

 thoughts and lives of the diverse races of the East, 

 the good effects of that success will extend far be- 

 yond the immediate and tangible results. The ancient 

 literature and the art of India are of unique interest 



NO. 2470, VOL. 99] 



in the history of human endeavour. *I look to the 

 school to quicken public interest in the intellectual 

 tradition of that great continent and to promote and 

 assist the labours of the students in these depart- 

 ments of knowledge, to the mutual advantage of both 

 countries." 



After the termination of the proceedings their 

 Majesties inspected the new school. They were accom- 

 panied bv the Lord Mavor, Lord and Ladv Curzon, 

 Mr. H. A. L. Fisher, Sir John Hewett, Mr. P. J. 

 Hartog, and Dr. Denison Ross, the director of the 

 school. 



GEORGE MASSEE. 

 \Jl YCOLOGISTS in all parts of the world wiU 

 •'-'■■ learn with great regret of the death of 

 Mr. G. Massee, which occurred at Sevenoaks, on 

 February 17, after a brief illness. George Edward 

 Massee was born at Scampston, in Yorkshire, about 

 1850, and at the age of ten was sent to school in 

 York. He early showed a taste for drawing and 

 natural history. At the York School of Art he 

 gained the national medal for the year, and when 

 about seventeen years old published a paper on 

 woodpeckers in the Intellectual Observer. Later he 

 studied botany under Spruce, a relative of his 

 mother. It was intended that he should follow his 

 father's steps as a farmer, but, always readv for 

 adventure, he readily accepted Spruce's suggestion 

 to visit the West Indies and South America. He 

 travelled in both the eastern and western countries 

 of that continent, and, in addition to making 

 botanical collections, sent home living plants in 

 bulk. 



On his return Massee 's artistic talent became 

 further manifest through the publication of his 

 drawings in Spruce's " Hepaticae Amazonicae et 

 Andinae." He took up teaching and returned to 

 the study of botany, specialising in fungi and 

 plant diseases. He also got into touch with the 

 late Dr. M. C. Cooke, and after working as a 

 volunteer at Kew for some years he succeeded 

 Cooke in 1893 as head of the Crvotogamic De- 

 partment of the Herbarium, a post which he held 

 until his retirement in 191 5. 



Amongst his earlier volumes may be mentioned 

 "British Fungi, Phycomycetes and Ustilagineae " 

 (1891), and "A Monograph of the Myxogastres 

 (1892). Between that year and 1895 four volum. 

 of his " British Fungus Flora " were issued, the 

 work remaining incomplete. The descriptions in 

 this flora were detailed and comprehensive, and 

 the book has proved indispensable to all British 

 students. 



Massee 's serious pathological investig-ations 

 began about 1895, and from that date until his 

 retirement a continuous stream of contributions to 

 this subject flowed from his pen. His "Text- 

 book of Plant Diseases " (1899), in which he made 

 a wise selection from the best work of others, was 

 a really good and useful book, and had perhaps a 

 higher reputation than any other. Its publica- 

 tion marked a distinct epoch in the histon,^ of plant 

 pathology- in this country. In his larger work. 

 "Diseases of Cultivated Plants and Trees " (1910). 

 manv of the author's own views, not alwavs 



