THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 197 



hearing the lectures of Thomas Nuttall, in the Germantown 

 Academy in 1818. During his life Mr. Wister became 

 acquainted with many local botanists, and at eighty-nine it 

 was a pleasure to tell anecdotes concerning them.* 



His surviving family consists of two sons, William 

 Wynne Wister, Jr., and Alexander W. Wister, and four 

 daughters. 



JACOB ENNIS. 



Jacob Ennis f was born in Essex County, New Jersey, in 

 1807. He came of Scotch-Irish ancestry on the paternal 

 side, and was of Dutch extraction (the Doremuses) on the 

 maternal side. After he had graduated at Rutger's College, 

 and while quite a young man, he connected himself with 

 the Dutch Reformed Church, and was by that Church sent 

 to the islands of Java and Sumatra as a missionary, where 

 he remained four years. Here his powers of observation 

 and his love of nature had an early development. Returning 

 to his native land, he engaged in educational work, and was 

 elected Professor of Natural Sciences in the National Military 

 College of Bristol, Pennsylvania, and later became Principal 

 of the Scientific and Classical Institute of Philadelphia, 

 where he spent the best part of his life as its proprietor. He 

 also occupied for some years the chair of physical sciences in 

 the State Normal School at Shippensburg, Pennsylvnia. As 

 an educator, he laid great stress on the importance of the 

 study of nature, anticipating by perhaps a quarter of a century 

 the recognition that scientific studies have subsequently 

 had in all the higher institutions of learning. During 

 several years of his residence in Philadelphia, he led out 



* See page 144. 



1 1890. Popular Science Monthly, XXXVII : 137, from which the main facts of 

 this sketch are taken. 



