PBESIDENT 8 ADDRESS. V 



now likely to leave the stronger sex boliiiul even in these 

 subjects, Tnis, iiovvever, is merely a suggestion. 



To many minds tliere is something forbidding in the very 

 aspect and idea of science of whatever kind. Scientific know- 

 ledge is supposed to be something inherently different fi-om 

 common kuo\yledge, a knowledge for which ordinary sense and 

 observation will not suffice. On the contrary common sense is 

 most necessaiy for the unprejudiced observation of the phenomena 

 of Nature. The carrying oiit of an investigation may require 

 patience and skill, but not any recondite power unavailable to 

 the ordinary intellect. Moreover, whilst science as such has a 

 forbidding aspect, there is no doubt that a great scientific wave 

 has rolled over modern thought and speculation. Never had 

 scientific discoveries a greater interest for the bulk of thinking 

 people than at present. Metaphysics liave lost then- popularity — 

 somewhat limited as far as England was concerned — and the 

 cultm-e of the age no longer talks of pure reason, but of the 

 potentiality of matter, evolution, protoplasm, life and organisa- 

 tion. The study of Botany may seem a very long way from 

 these high things, but how can a man talk, not to say think 

 about them, unless he knows something of the facts upon which 

 modern speculations are founded. Animal life is the great 

 arcanum, but it cannot be separated from vegetable life, side 

 by side of which it lives in its lower forms, and without which 

 it cannot exist. 



The terminology of Botany is a stumbling block to many. 

 It is the tendency especially of om* Teutonic friends to multiply 

 terms that are unattractive and uncouth. For instance, I 

 noticed the following announcement: — "Dr. Eriksson has 

 recently discovered at Leipzig the protomeristem in the roots 

 of Dicotyledons. It appears that the root apex consists of three 

 zones of meristem, the pleroma, the periblem, and the 

 dermocalyptrogen," and so on. Pretty well, this, for the point 

 of a root, but I hope to show that a great portion of the most 

 interesting featm*es of Botany may be studied with very little 

 requii'ement of the use of scientific terms. 



