1896 | BOTANICAL OPPORTUNITY 205 
been found to justify the acquisition of facilities beyond the 
power of their immediate use, it will be found that where research 
institutions exist in close connection with a university of recog- 
nized standing, their equipment will be utilized more or less fully 
in postgraduate work done toward the acquisition of the doctor’s 
degree, so that, like the undergraduate equipment, it will be more 
or less satisfactorily accounted for by the number of candidates 
for such degree; but with broadly grounded and well endowed 
research institutions not so situated, it is inevitable that as they 
take permanent form on the lines caculated to make them avail- 
able for advanced research in any line of botany, they will sooner 
or later come to represent a very large sum of invested money, 
of which only a part is usefully employed at any given time, the 
remainder being held as a necessary but temporarily unproduc- 
tive reserve. The same thing is seen, to a certain extent, in all 
large libraries and museums; but, unlike the general library, of 
interest to the entire reading public, or the collection of histori- 
cal or political works, referred to by many people of ordinary 
intellectual attainments, the advanced equipment in botany, for 
the most part, is useful and interesting only to botanists, so that, 
while it may possess a passing interest for the general student, its 
Serious use is limited toa very restricted class. How to increase 
this use to the maximum may well demand our best thought. 
No doubt, just as many colleges now offer scholarships, 
making their advantages available to men who otherwise could 
not enjoy them, and some of our universities offer fellowships, 
pening their own postgraduate courses or those of foreign 
_WMiversities to deserving students, the evolution of research 
institutions will witness some such provision for enabling students 
Who have partially completed pieces of research work to visit 
_ utilize these centers without encroaching too far on the 
limited Savings from the small salaries which, as a rule, are drawn 
by the botanists of the country. After all, however, the great 
°pportunity of attainment, for such institutions, whether or not 
onnected with colleges or universities, lies in the performance 
of research work by their own employés; and while, except in 
