September 20, 1895.] 



SGIENGE. 



363 



the recognized standard of instruction. A 

 wealth of laboratory guides soon appeared, 

 and American botanists became devotees 

 of microscopic anatomy. I scarcely need 

 call your attention to the triumphal ad- 

 vancement of botany during the decade of 

 the eighties; it is so fresh in every one's 

 mind. It amounted to a revolution; the 

 work of the herbarium was well-nigh 

 abandoned for the study of the cell. Those 

 of the older systematic botanists who took 

 no part in this upheaval became alarmed, 

 and put forth vigorous protests, claiming 

 with much justice that pupils so trained 

 lost breadth of view and proper perspective. 

 An editorial writer in the Botanical Gazette 

 very clearljr contrasted the two methods of 

 instruction. " The ancient method," said 

 he, " gives a wide range of acquaintance 

 with external forms, a general knowledge 

 of the plant kingdom and its affinities, a 

 living interest in the surrounding flora; but 

 it disregards the underlying morphology of 

 minute structures and chemical processes, 

 the great principles which bring plant life 

 into one organic whole. The modern 

 method, on the contrary," he continues, 

 "takes a few types, carefully examines their 

 minutest structures and life work, and 

 grounds well in general biological princi- 

 ples; but it loses the relation of things, as 

 well as any knowledge of the display of the 

 plant kingdom in its endless diversity, and, 

 worse than all for the naturalist, cultivates 

 no love for a flora at hand and inviting at- 

 tention. The foi-mer is the method of the 

 field, the latter of the laboratory." 



But under both ancient and modern 

 methods of instruction, whether the teacher 

 were a systematist or a histologist, whether 

 the pupil pulled apart flowers under a hand 

 lens or dissected tissues under a compound 

 microscope, botany flourished in America. 

 There was, in reality, a better philosophy 

 abroad than usually appeared in practice. 

 The layman, remembering his school days. 



might assert with Julian Hawthorne that 

 " botany is a sequel of murder and a chron- 

 icle of the dead," but the professional botan- 

 ist, imbued with the spirit of the times, 

 resented the imputation as no fault of the 

 science; and while deploring the well 

 enough known medisevalism and incom- 

 petence of teachers, who only disclosed a 

 descriptive and classificatory science, with 

 marvelous wealth of terminology to be sure, 

 but as lifeless and unbiological as mathe- 

 matics or astronomj', pointed to the motto 

 held by all the progressionists, ' the study 

 of plants as living things.' 



The revivifying spirit which was pervad- 

 ing the botanical Avorld, which strove to 

 find in plants more than objects for the 

 giossologist and the cataloguer, which in- 

 terrogated the plant upon matters of action 

 as if a dumb intelligence, which diffused a 

 new light and a higher significance into 

 every fact of the science, had its source in 

 that all-pervading influence which ema- 

 nated from the observations and interpreta- 

 tions of Charles Darwin. The brilliant 

 series of works upon the behavior and re- 

 lationship of plants by this author, begin- 

 ning with the fertilization of orchids in 

 1862 and extending through a score of 

 years, left a profound impress upon botan- 

 ical thought, based as they were upon the 

 connecting thread of evolution. So differ- 

 ent now was the point of view that there 

 sprang up what was called the ' new 

 botany.' Although the inspiration of the 

 ' new botany ' was general, yet it manifested 

 itself pedagogically chiefly in elementary 

 instruction and in special studies. We may 

 pass the delightful brochure of Asa Gray on 

 'How Plants Behave' (1872) with a bare 

 mention, as it appeared too early to show 

 any peculiarities of method not familiar to 

 the readers of Darwin, and to call to mind 

 the much less pretentious presentation of 

 the new way as understood by Beal under 

 the title of ' The New Botany ' (1881). He 



