SECTION K.— BOTANY. 



THE MODERN STUDY OF PLANTS 

 IN RELATION TO EDUCATION 



ADDRESS BY 



PROF. E. J. SALISBURY, D.Sc, F.R.S., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



In choosing as the subject of my Address a more general rather than a 

 special theme I have not been unmindful of the fact that this is one of the 

 few occasions on which it is permitted to dwell on the wider application 

 of one's subject untrammelled by the presence of a purely specialist 

 audience and unchallenged by the imminence of debate. 



I hope I have not been tempted unwarrantably to voice my passing 

 thoughts on the broader considerations of the educational value and con- 

 tacts of our subject by the happy consideration that these words of mine 

 will find a peaceful resting place between the covers of an Annual Report 

 whence they can only be exhumed by deliberate intent. 



When we cast our minds back on the general attitude adopted towards 

 our subject in the latter part of the eighteenth century we cannot but be 

 struck by the almost apologetic phraseology of its votaries and the curious 

 grounds upon which they rationalised its pursuit. Rousseau, for example, 

 described Botany as a study of pure curiosity that has no other real use 

 than that which a thinking, sensible being may deduce from the observation 

 of nature and the wonders of the universe. I venture to think that many 

 otherwise educated people to-day would express similar sentiments, 

 though in more modern and probably less complimentary language. 



There are many who regard the botanist as one whose main pre- 

 occupation is to recognise plants and to name them, capacities which, 

 I am sure most of my professional colleagues will agree, are perhaps the 

 least widespread to-day of those which the compleat botanist should 

 possess. Indeed, the layman is so often disappointed in the professional 

 botanist's capacity to label plants that he rates our occupation even lower 

 than before. 



The teaching of our subject has been in no small degree to blame for 

 the widespread misconceptions as to its aims and content. For long 

 regarded as a harmless and elegant occupation for the female sex. Botany 

 only survived as a study of practical utility because of the continued 

 necessity for medical practitioners to acquire some knowledge of Materia 

 Medica. How perfunctory was much of this teaching is indicated in that 

 charming book Leaves from the Life of a Country Doctor, where the late 

 C. B. Gunn describes how as a medical student in 1878 ' the botany class 

 gave me a " scunner " at the subject which has lasted ever since.' ' Pro- 



