SEPTEMBER 8, 1899. ] 
dissatisfaction with the empty reasonings of 
such scholastic philosophy that drove men 
to observe the phenomena of nature. Thus 
real physiology had its birth in the last half 
of the seventeenth century, only alittle later 
than the other natural sciences. It is, how- 
ever, only in comparatively recent years 
that plant physiology has become estab- 
lished upon a firm experimental basis and 
thus fitted to take its proper place among 
the sciences offered in university curricula. 
Its real and vigorous growth has been meas- 
ured by scarcely four decades. Among the 
countless results of the rejuvenation of biol- 
ogy wrought by various cooperating causes 
about the year 1860, may be enumerated 
the rise of plant physiology. One of the 
first evidences of this renascence was the ° 
publication in 1865 of Sachs’s Handbuch 
der Experimental-Physiologie, the first volume 
which gave any comprehensive and clear 
view of the phenomena of plant life. 
From that day to this, with increasing 
vigor, Sachs’s countrymen have been prose- 
cuting researches into plant doings and 
guiding many students in their maiden in- 
vestigations. French, Austrian, Italian and 
Russian students have also made notable 
advances. On the continent a few great 
centers of physiological research have been 
developed, like Wurzburg, Tubingen, Leip- 
zig, Bonn, Berlin, Vienna, Prag and Paris. 
Great Britain has made a notable beginning 
at three of her great university centers. 
But in this country the specialization 
which alone makes possible the effective 
development of a subject, has been slower 
in coming, and it is scarcely a decade since 
physiology began to have any considerable 
attention. Five years ago (I speak by the 
ecard) one could count on the fingers of one 
hand the colleges which offered any but 
brief lecture courses in plant physiology, 
and the number giving even lecture courses 
was less than 4% of the total number of 
colleges. Iam sure that many in this au- 
"SCIENCE. ol7 
dience would be surprised were I to recite 
the long list of prominent institutions which 
gave no physiological courses—some even no 
botany. In late years many have made a 
beginning in the way of demonstration and 
lecture courses, but the number with even 
fairly equipped physiological laboratories is 
still few. Indeed, there are to-day not 
twenty-five institutions of higher learning 
in the United States which offer laboratory 
instruction in plant physiology, even in an 
elementary way, and still fewer which give 
opportunity for as much as a year’s work. 
Graduate work in physiology, if the Grad- 
uate Handbook for 1898-9 may be relied 
upon, is now offered only at Barnard, 
Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Michigan, 
Minnesota and Pennsylvania. 
The development of centers of physiolog- 
ical research is therefore a matter of the 
future. It cannot be long delayed, how- 
ever, for there is noteworthy energy in the 
advancement of this subject in several of the 
stronger institutions. 
To the professional botanists, who are 
especially concerned in the advancement of 
the science, it would doubtless be of some 
interest should I take this opportunity to 
recapitulate the investigations which have 
been most fruitful of progress in the past 
decade. But the field is so vast, and work 
is being so vigorously prosecuted, that I 
should despair of being able, within the 
limits custom sets, to present adequately 
the march of our knowledge of plants within 
the last decade. To such a task, moreover, 
my own knowledge would be wholly in- 
adequate. 
Therefore, instead of presenting a sum- 
mary of so extensive an investigation, I 
choose rather to confine my attention to the 
physiological aspects of botany, and in this 
field to endeavor to bring before you a con- 
ception of the general trend of investigation, 
without any endeavor to mention the work 
of individuals or even the important isolated 
