PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 663 
been my first care had not an event occurred since the last meeting of this Asso- 
ciation which compels me, in common with all botanists, to divert thought from 
its preoccupation and to look back along the route which our science has travelled 
during the last few decades. ‘ 
That event, I need not say, was the death of Sir Joseph Hooker, a former 
president of this Association and twice president of this Sectfon. The most 
venerable and distinguished of British botanists, Sir Joseph Hooker was well- 
nigh the last survivor of that band of Victorian naturalists who helped to lay 
the foundations of biology and to disseminate broadcast the knowledge which 
they made. The story of the labours of that group of naturalists—Lyell, Darwin, 
the Hookers, Wallace, Huxley, Galton, and others scarcely less distinguished— 
has been told so often that there is no need to retell it now. Nor need I recount 
the work of Hooker. His discoveries are known and require no re-enumeration. 
They are incorporated with the common fund of knowledge. British botanists 
will determine, doubtless, to consecrate a special occasion to the commemoration 
of Hooker’s services to science and to the perpetuation of his memory. My uty 
it is to express, on behalf of native botanists and of our guests who honour us 
with their presemce, our sense of loss in the death of Sir Joseph Hooker and our 
admiring recognition of his achievements. 
And with the example of that long life devoted until its latest hour to the 
pursuit of science I would fain address myself forthwith to my special task ; but 
despite my will I find my thoughts enchained in the contemplation of the life and 
times of Hooker. Systematist, explorer, critic, writer, administrator, Sir Joseph 
was first and last a botanist. The versatile Hooker was a specialist. 
Thus I find myself turned again to the thoughts which vexed my mind at the 
outset of this Address, urged now to ask outright whether the specialisation of our 
times has the quality which distinguished that of Hooker amd his contemporaries. 
This is the uneasy phantom that has been haunting me and luring me to the 
ramparts when I should be wooing my chosen theme. It haunts me, refusing 
to be laid. Reason fails to exorcise that ghost. Its uneasy presence lingers 
near me even though I conjure it with specious arguments; urging that these 
days are days of specialisation @ outrance: that nowadays both in the art 
and practice part of life we live by the intensive cultivation of small-holdings ; 
that the fields of science are parcelled out in small allotments. Were I—a simple 
officer—the sole subject of this visitation I should attribute it to fantasy, and 
with Horatio cry ‘ Tush!’ but beside this poor Bernardo, Marcellus, officer and 
scholar, has likewise seen it ‘in the same figure like the King that’s dead,’ and 
who may refuse to entertain a ghost presenting this—the highest of credentials? 
Therefore I offer it again my arguments, insisting that at least among our 
elders we have specialists as versatile as any of the Victorians. The ghost is not 
impressed. Instead, it rises to a fuller height, and lays its incorporeal finger 
on the row of volumes which line the shelves above my head. My obsequious 
eye follows the direction, and beholds Lyell’s ‘ Principles,’ Darwin’s ‘ Voyage,’ 
Hooker’s ‘ Journal,’ Huxley’s ‘Essays,’ Wallace’s ‘Island Life,’ Galton’s 
‘Natural Inheritance,’ and the other classics from his clients’ pens. With the 
dawn of my comprehension the spectre vanishes, and I am alone, but not in peace. 
The message left with me appears to translate as follows: The present 
generation has become expert in intensive cultivation of scientific knowledge, 
but it has forgotten how to market its produce. In the preoccupation of 
specialisation it neglects the art of expression. It sinks the artist in the artizan. 
Each specialist exchanges ‘ separates ’"—hateful term—with other specialists, but 
few among us are on speaking terms with the cultured general public curious to 
know what science is achieving. 
The translation into common English of our scientific works is done, like 
that of foreign classics, too much by hacks and amateurs, and too little by 
skilled hands. The present generation lets its modestv wrong it; for the ecience 
of our day is no less full—nay, many times more full—of interest and wonder 
than that of fifty years ago. 
Still worse : to fail to cultivate the art of expression is to blunt the power 
of thinking, for the adage ‘clear thinking means clear writing’ stands though 
the subject and object be transposed. 
Such is the nature of the charge which my visitant left with me; and though, 
