192 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



to come forward in the keen spirit of adventure and to undertake their 

 solution. 



Our university students, I sometimes think, are apt to believe that 

 salvation can only come through the brass tube of a microscope ! Yet to 

 a keen observer with the naked eye or a hand lens, in collaboration, no 

 doubt, with the microscope, for some cognate genetical or structural 

 question, there are problems as fascinating and of as much, if not of more, 

 general importance than the detailed anatomical structure of some obscure 

 though doubtless very interesting specimen. 



The passing reference I have made to John Stephens Henslow some- 

 what naturally causes me to refer to two other great teachers, who, alas, 

 are no longer with us, William Turner Thiselton-Dyer and Harold Wager. 

 To Dyer, who died just before Christmas 1928, our section largely owes its 

 foundation, but in thinking of him with Henslow and Wager, it is particu- 

 larly as a teacher that I would recall his services to Botany. His associa- 

 tion with Huxley in the memorable course of Elementary Biology at South 

 Kensington, and his own courses in Botany in 1874 and the following year, 

 assisted by Prof. S. H. Vines (who celebrated his eightieth birthday at the 

 close of last year), again revolutionised botanical teaching in this country. 

 Nor must we forget all he did towards securing the preservation of the 

 Chelsea Physic Garden, and what the successful issue of his labours has 

 meant for the furtherance of botanical teaching in London. 



The death of Harold Wager on November 17 last year — president of 

 our section at the South African meeting in 1905 — is a very great loss to 

 Biology. Not only was he a most skilful manipulator and, like Henslow, 

 used always the simplest and most ingeniously contrived appliances, but 

 he had the real temperament of the naturalist with keen powers of observa- 

 tion. Problems open to solution by scientific experiment were constantly 

 perceived by him, which hitherto had been neglected, unseen by scientists 

 lacking his inquiring mind and keen powers of observation. 



Wager's influence among the amateur naturalists and professional 

 teachers was outstanding. His unremitting scientific labours were a daily 

 accompaniment to the conscientious fulfilment of his duties as an inspector 

 of schools. The teacher of biology in the school, prone to follow the easier 

 path of instruction through text- book and diagram, was constantly being 

 reminded, through contact with Wagei, of the wide gap that may exist 

 between the formal description and the actual object to be examined. 

 Just as the amateur naturalist, finding in Wager a kindred spirit, was led 

 by his example to take more pains and extend the range of his scientific 

 technique, so the professional teacher was encouraged to put aside mere 

 repetition of second-hand facts, to observe for himself, to become, in fact, 

 ' a Naturalist,' and thus to develop a new enthusiasm which rapidly 

 communicated itself to his pupils.^ 



May the infectious enthusiasm which he communicated long remain 

 amongst us. 



Henslow and Wager, I think, must have had much in common ; both 

 realised the importance of strengthening the observant faculties, and 

 I have referred especially to these two pre-eminent naturalists, since the 



* See the obituary notice in Nature, December 21, 1929. 



