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SCIENCE. 



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



assistants as such have no educational func- 

 tions allotted them; I mean positions in 

 these herbaria carry no teaching duties 

 with them. There are no facilities for 

 teaching; there are no students. No ma- 

 chinery exists for training recruits or for 

 interesting anybody in the ideals and meth- 

 ods of systematic botany. A recent event 

 illustrates my meaning better than any 

 words. My friend Dr. Rendle accepted 

 the keepership of the botanical department 

 at the British Museum a few months ago. 

 Previously, as assistant, he had held a lec- 

 tureship at a London college. One of the 

 first consequences of his new appointment 

 was his retirement from the teaching post. 

 Now that was bad. Under the conditions 

 which one would like to see there would 

 have been no resignation. On the contrary, 

 the keepership should have entitled Dr. 

 Rendle to promotion to a full professor- 

 ship. I do not mean a great post, with 

 elementary classes, organization, and so on, 

 but one in which he would be occupied 

 with his own branch, giving a course for 

 advanced students, let us say, once a year 

 during the summer months. Nor is that 

 all. Such are the vagaries of our univer- 

 sity organization in London that we run 

 some risk of losing Dr. Rendle from the 

 board of studies in botany. Automatically 

 he ceases to be a 'recognized teacher,' and 

 unless some loophole can be found the con- 

 nection will be severed. 



Next we come to the question of routine 

 duties. These are heavy in herbaria, and 

 must include a great many that could be 

 satisfactorily discharged by handy attend- 

 ants. As in the case of those who work 

 in laboratories, half a man's time should be 

 at his own disposal for original investiga- 

 tions. It is important, for a variety of 

 reasons, that the members of the staff 

 should take a leading part in advancing 

 systematic botany. 



Then there is another way in which a 

 great economy could be effected in effort, 

 time and money. This is the transfer of 

 the collections and staff of the botanical 

 department from the Museum to Kew. 

 This is a very old proposal, first seriously 

 entertained some fifty years ago after the 

 death of Robert Brown. There must be 

 endless files of reports and blue books in 

 official pigeon-holes dealing with this ques- 

 tion. The most recent report of a depart- 

 mental committee is known to all inter- 

 ested in the matter. From the character 

 of the evidence tendered it is not surprising 

 that no action has been taken. I am at a 

 loss to find any adequate reason for the 

 continuance of two separate herbaria. It 

 has been urged, no doubt, that botany 

 would suffer if unrepresented in the mu- 

 seum collections at South Kensington, and 

 that the dried collections and herbarium 

 staff are a necessary adjunct to the main- 

 tenance of a botanical museum. But there 

 is little force in the contention. The speci- 

 mens that go to make a herbarium are not 

 proper subject-matter for museum display ; 

 nor is there anything about herbarium 

 work which intrinsically fits the staff to 

 engage in the arrangement of museum 

 cases. The function of a botanical mu- 

 seum is to interest, stimulate and attract. 

 It should convey an idea of the current 

 state of the science, and particularly of the 

 problems that are to the front, in so far as 

 it is possible to illustrate them. It requires 

 a curator with imagination and ideas, as 

 well as an all-round knowledge of his sub- 

 ject. He must also be an artist. Logically 

 there is no reason why a museum should be 

 part of the same organization as systematic 

 collections. There is, indeed, a danger of 

 making the museum too exhaustive. I am 

 speaking, of course, of a teaching museum, 

 which belongs really to the province of a 

 university, or university extension if you 



