RECENT PROGRESS OF SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 35 
countries or districts ; 6. Detached and miscellaneous specific descriptions. 
Before considering how far the works now complete or in progress answer 
our requirements under each of these heads, a few general remarks are sug- 
gested with regard to the languages in use, 
In the pursuit of my systematic studies, and especially in the preparation 
of my reports and addresses to the Linnean Society, I have had to consult or 
refer to botanical publications in no less than fifteen different languages *. 
This, to say the least of it, entails the use of a series of dictionaries which 
but a small number of botanists can have access to ; and many an important 
observation or discovery recorded remains, for this reason alone, long un- 
known to the general botanist. That works intended for the use of the 
beginner or local amateur, or exclusively teaching the well-known botany of 
a particular country, should be in the familiar language of the country, is a 
rule that every one will admit the expediency of; but for purely scientific 
treatises and technically descriptive works which all botanists may have to 
take cognizance of, and for which the commercial demand may be too limited 
to ensure their translation into various languages, it is essential that that 
one should be selected which is most likely to be intelligible to the greater 
number of students of all countries. With this view Latin had been very 
generally adopted during the last and the early portion of the present cen- 
tury. It was tanght in all European schools, and served even as a vehicle 
for general interchange of ideas between the votaries of science of different 
countries where the study of modern languages was exceptional ; and even 
now it is found to be the best suited for technical diagnoses and descriptions 
from its concise character and from its susceptibility of being subjected to tech- 
nical forms, without jarring upon the conventionalities of living languages 
in familiar use. Every botanist must still, therefore, learn to read, and every 
descriptive botanist to draw up, these Latin formule, notwithstanding the 
character of dog-Latin which the scholar may be disposed to charge them 
with ; but general descriptions, treatises, and discussions require a language 
more thoroughly understood and in familiar use for other purposes. A clas- 
sical education is now much less common than it was, and almost unknown 
in some countries where science is eagerly pursued. Modern languages are, 
on the other hand, much more frequently taught for general use ; and there 
are three which at the present day every botanist ought to understand, and 
in one of which he ought to be able to write—all three having a rich lite- 
rature in every branch to repay the labour of learning them, independently 
of science; these are, French, English, and German. 
French has long been considered the one among modern languages 
forming the nearest approach to a common one; it is easy, comparatively 
simple in construction, not overburdened with redundant words, and, above 
all, is readily broken up into short phrases, an invaluable qualification for 
clearness of methodical exposition. It has long been the recognized diplo- 
matic language, and the first foreign one taught in most European schools ; 
and although within my own recollection national animosities may have 
from time to time thrown it into disfavour in Germany and Eastern Europe, 
yet it always appears to recover its prestige there in general society. At 
the meetings of the botanists of various nations congregated at Florence last 
May it was the general medium of intercourse, although the Frenchmen 
present were in avery small minority. And in every branch of science or 
literature to which I have paid more or less attention, it possesses more 
* Latin, English, French, German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Russian, Polish, Bohemian, 
Hungarian, Portuguese, £ Spanish, Italian, and modern Greek. 
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