228 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



fessor Balfour,' he continues, ' a very kindly man, was well named " Woody 

 fibre," as his teaching of what might have been a most interesting subject 

 was of a singularly wooden and fibrous nature.' It is perhaps only fair 

 to add that the lectures of his son are reputed to have been as interesting 

 as those of his father were apparently dull. 



The old technological significance for Medicine has long since gone, 

 but a newer and vastly more important significance remains, both cultural 

 and vocational, which has rarely been stated, let alone stressed. Despite 

 the vastly enlarged content of botanical knowledge since those days the 

 general conception of Botany has remained much what it was then, and 

 the fact that we so often have to deplore previous training in the subject 

 of students who come up to the Universities is, I think, sufficient proof 

 that the woody fibres of mere description still predominate over the 

 functional presentation of the living plant. 



What I would particularly wish to urge is that the high value of Botany 

 as an educational subject and indeed its absolute necessity in any system 

 of real cultural development is an aspect which we botanists have failed 

 to present and emphasise, perhaps too often even to realise ourselves. 



The protagonists of compulsory Greek and Latin of the last century 

 valued very highly, and rightly so, the cultural content which a study of 

 the humanities could provide. It is easy for us to be wise after the event, 

 but now that the dust of that controversy has cleared away we can see 

 that failure to apprehend that there are other approaches to the same 

 mental salvation led to an unfortunate insistence upon the means rather 

 than upon the end. 



But whilst scientists justly claim that cultural value is the monopoly of 

 no one subject and that those brought up in the classical tradition may 

 be as much philistines as any scientist it is undoubtedly true that the 

 immense cultural potentialities of scientific thought have too often been 

 neglected for the sake of mere erudition. 



There is a general tendency for university teaching to become more 

 and more vocational as the specialised demands of occupations become 

 increasingly exacting. 



Thus not only do technological aspects grow more obtrusive, especially 

 in the final courses of certain subjects, but there is a trend, in the direction 

 of this change, making its influence felt, further and further back in the 

 student's training, so that we find, for example, certain sections of the 

 medical profession demanding that the preliminary education should 

 have a more direct bearing on the future occupation of the student, 

 despite the fact that this can only be accomplished at the expense of their 

 general education and culture. With the long course of training which 

 most professions to-day require and the financial strain that this often 

 involves upon parents, one cannot but sympathise in the wish to provide 

 some relief, but if this is to be accomplished without detriment to the 

 ultimate standing of the professions themselves it can only be by an 

 increased concentration on the more general aspects of culture in the 

 schools. So far as biology is concerned there is a widespread recognition 

 for the need of greater attention to training in observation in the schools 

 allied to what may be termed the scientific study of Natural History. Too 

 much attention in this as in other subjects is paid to the acquisition of 



