322 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIV. No. 611. 



schools were not ready. No mo.vement of 

 the sort could take root without the means 

 of enlisting the sympathies of the rising 

 generation. It was only in the seventies 

 that effective steps were taken to place bot- 

 any on the higher platform ; and the service 

 rendered in this connection by Thistleton- 

 Dyer and Vines is within the knowledge of 

 us all. Like the former in London, so the 

 latter at Cambridge aroused great enthu- 

 siasm by his admirable courses of lectures. 

 Great service, too, was rendered by the 

 Clarendon Press, which diffused excellent 

 translations of the best continental text- 

 books — a policy which it still pursues with 

 unabated vigor, though the need of them 

 is, I hope, less urgent now than formerly. 

 Already at the time of the last meeting in 

 York (1881) a select band of Englishmen 

 were at work upon original investigations 

 of the modern kind. The individuals who 

 formed this little group of pioneers in their 

 turn influenced their pupils, and so the 

 movement spread and grew. It would be 

 premature to enter fully into this phase of 

 the movement, so I will pass on with the 

 remark that modern botany was singularly 

 fortunate in its early exponents. 



Whenever the history of botany in Eng- 

 land comes to be written, one very impor- 

 tant event will have to be chronicled. This 

 is the foundation of the Jodrell Laboratory 

 at Kew, which dates from the year 1876. 

 Hidden away in a corner of the gardens 

 this unpretentious appendage of the Kew 

 establishment has played a leading part in 

 the work of the last twenty-five years. 

 Here you were free to pursue your investi- 

 gations with the whole resources of the 

 gardens at your command. I suppose 

 there is hardly a botanist in the country 

 who has not, at some time or other, availed 

 himself of these facilities, and who does not 

 cherish the happiest memories of the time 

 he may have spent there. Certainly Jod- 



rell displayed rare sagacity in his benefac- 

 tions, which included, in addition to the 

 laboratory that bears his name, the endow- 

 ments of the chairs of animal physiology 

 and zoology at University College, London. 



Sir William Thistleton-Dyer, who has so 

 recently retired from the directorship of 

 Kew, had every means of knowing that his 

 happy inspiration of founding a laboratory 

 at Kew was a most fertile one. It would 

 not be surprising if the future were to show 

 that of the many changes inaugurated dur- 

 ing his period of service this departure 

 should prove by far the most fruitful. 



Another incident belonging to the early 

 days ought not to be overlooked : I refer to 

 the notable concourse of continental and 

 American botanists at the Manchester meet- 

 ing of the British Association in 1887. 

 The genuine interest which they evinced in 

 our budding efforts and the friendly en- 

 couragement extended to us on that occa- 

 sion certainly left an abiding impression 

 and cheered us on our way. 



We are not forgetful of our obligations. 

 We regard them in the light of a sort of 

 funded debt on which it is at once a pleas- 

 ure and a duty to pay interest. The divi- 

 dends, I believe, are steadily increasing — a 

 happy result which I am confident will be 

 maintained. 



But I should be lacking in my duty did 

 I permit the impression to remain that 

 botany is anything but a sturdy and nat- 

 ural growth among us. The awakening, 

 no doubt, came late, and at first we were 

 influenced from without in the subject-mat- 

 ter of our investigations. But many lines 

 of work have gradually opened out, whilst 

 fruitful new departures and important ad- 

 vances have not been wanting. We still lean 

 a little heavily on the morphological side, 

 and our most urgent need lies in the direc- 

 tion of physiology. As chemists and phys- 

 icists realize more fully the possibilities of 



