Januaky 17, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



81 



the camp and shattered time-worn theo- 

 ries. That the variations and adaptations 

 of plants and animals were not for the 

 benefit of man, but for the benefit of 

 the plants and animals themselves, was 

 a dreadful heresy. The violence of the 

 controversy caused by Darwin's great 

 work was something of which the pres- 

 ent generation can have no conception. 

 It was at its height when I was a college 

 student. Toung men were generally in- 

 clined to accept Darwin's views, and in our 

 college natural history society most of the 

 meetings were spent in discussing evolu- 

 tion. Some of us had really read the 

 ' ' Origin of Species, ' ' but all were ready to 

 talk about it. The older men, even the nat- 

 uralists by profession, were much more 

 conservative. A few adventurous spirits 

 were more Darwinian than Darwin him- 

 self, but college professors had to be care- 

 ful in what they said, for practically the 

 whole religious world and the greater part 

 of college graduates were not ready then 

 to accept evolution. The bitter feeling of 

 the antidarwinians continued for a consid- 

 erable number of years, as is shown by the 

 following instance. A little more than 

 twelve years after the appearance of the 

 "Origin of Species" one of our leading 

 universities wished to appoint a professor 

 of zoology. The place was offered to a 

 friend of mine with the stipulation that he 

 should never, directly or indirectly, refer 

 to evolution in his lectures. As my friend 

 was one of the most rabid evolutionists in 

 America, the conditional offer seemed 

 amusing. He, of course, declined and the 

 place was then offered to one hardly less 

 radical in his views, and was again declined. 

 It -was rumored that the place was offered 

 to a third person and again declined, but I 

 have no direct knowledge that this was the 

 ease. The present incumbent, I presume, 

 believes in evolution, but probably no one 



has ever taken the trouble to ask him 

 whether he does or not for, at the present 

 day we should no more think of asking a 

 professor of zoology whether he believes in 

 evolution than whether he is the fortunate 

 owner of a tooth-brush. 



At a time when many of the leading 

 zoologists, including Louis Agassiz, were 

 strongly opposed to Darwin's views, the 

 botanist, Asa Gray, exerted a powerful 

 influence in converting the public to the 

 doctrine of evolution. His simple and 

 attractive style enabled him to reach an 

 audience which would have been repelled 

 by the dryness generally supposed to be 

 characteristic of scientific writings. He 

 was also known to be a member of the 

 orthodox church and the good religious 

 people of the country said : if the orthodox 

 Gray sees in evolution nothing inconsistent 

 with revelation, why may we not also ac- 

 cept it ? Furthermore, Gray did not go too 

 far in his views, whereas some of the evo- 

 lutionists started off on a wild sea of specu- 

 lation whither the public would not be ex- 

 pected to follow. 



Having tried as far as the limited time 

 allows to give you an idea of the attitude 

 of the public towards natural science, at 

 the time when I began the study of botany, 

 a word may be said about the botanical in- 

 struction in colleges. At Harvard botany 

 was a required .study for the whole class 

 during half of the sophomore year. The 

 text-book was Gray's "Structural Bot- 

 any." Gray had no assistant. To require 

 botany of a whole college class — I am not 

 speaking of agricultural schools — is enough 

 to condemn it to neglect and abuse. This, 

 however, can be said of college students. 

 If their instructors do not interest them 

 they are always able to amuse themselves. 

 In the corner of our lecture room was the 

 trunk of a palmetto which had been used 

 to grace the funeral procession of Calhoun 



