1896 ] BOTANICAL OPPORTUNITY 211 
among us are to all that does not directly interest us, and it is 
an equal surprise to see how quickly one’s eyes open to things 
which he has once begun to think of and look for. If for no 
other reason than this, I would again urge breadth of early train- 
ing, as giving the first impulse to many a series of special 
observations to be followed up in later life. 
Once a subject is chosen, observations accumulate with sur- 
prising rapidity, and next to the selection of a subject nothing 
is so important as system in pursuing it. If we do not see it in 
ourselves, each one of us can see in others, a great waste of 
energy, resulting from shiftless and ill-considered methods of 
procedure, by which the mind is so distracted and the memory 
so overloaded with unessentials and dissociated fragments that 
those which belong together are not matched, nor the missing 
bits, in plain view, gathered. How often do we have to return 
time after time and review partial work that we have had to dis- 
miss temporarily from the mind, in which, meantime, has been 
lost the connection between the completed portion and the con- 
tinuation awaiting our leisure. A phenomenal memory may 
enable one to work in this disjointed fashion without the pro- 
duction of scrappy results or the review of all that has been 
done each time that the task is resumed; but for those not so 
gifted, order and method are absolutely necessary, and next to the 
clear idea of the end aimed at I should place the immediate making 
a full and exact notes as their most essential part. Some years 
Since I was privileged to assist Dr. Gray in collecting and repub- 
lishing the botanical writings of Dr. Engelmann, and it was a 
Matter of Surprise to us both, as it has been to others, to see how 
voluminous these were. Had Dr. Engelmann devoted his entire 
life to botany they would have been as creditable in quantity as 
in quality, but for the leisure hour productions of a busy pro- 
fessional man they were truly marvelous. Some years later, 
theron and library having found a dined ge at 
i. garden in the development of which he had felt an 
or many years, it fell to my lot to arrange in form for 
Permanent preservation Dr. Engelmann’s manuscript notes, 
