December 14, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



783 



no permanent place in botanical controversy. 

 When one's shortcomings are so rudely ex- 

 posed there is the temptation to emulate one's 

 critic and take reprisals. 



In my York address I endeavored to show 

 that in the general advance of botany in this 

 country during the last twenty-five years our 

 great centers of systematic botany had become 

 incased, as it were, in a sort of water-tight 

 compartment, and this from causes inherent 

 in their organization. I do not think it can 

 be seriously questioned that the herbaria pur- 

 sue their work apart. One has only to turn 

 to the utterances of men so well qualified to 

 speak for systematic botany as Sir George 

 King and Sir William Thistleton-Dyer. The 

 former speaks of its neglect and decadence; 

 in his presidential address to Section K, 

 British Association, Dover, 1899, p. 16, the 

 latter refers to its decline as a ' serious peril.' 

 It is not even an open secret, it is common 

 knowledge. Mr. Britten, when his remarks 

 are stripped of the irrelevancies and innu- 

 endoes which adorn them, tells us in effect 

 that my apprehensions are groundless and 

 that systematic botany jogs on happily with- 

 out the schools. Now this is dangerous op- 

 timism, or it would be if taken seriously. 



The position seems to be this: rightly or 

 wrongly and in spite of warnings we are per- 

 mitting the herbaria to become stranded: the 

 universities, schools and other institutions 

 which diffuse and stimulate an interest in 

 botany are not laid under contribution as they 

 might be. Systematic botany hardly gets its 

 fair proportion of the best that is available. 

 To my mind this is a great misfortune, a 

 source of weakness; nor do I believe I am 

 indiscreet in ventilating the subject. My 

 critic would say, perhaps, ' Teach systematic 

 botany by all means and then send your people 

 on to us.' But that is not the way to get 

 recruits worth having. A mere pious opinion 

 in favor of a given branch of knowledge will 

 effect nothing, even if you put your precepts 

 into practise. If one takes stock of the vari- 

 ous places which are centers of activity in 

 turning out students equipped and keen to 

 pursue science, one finds, with hardly an ex- 

 ception, that those who guide these institu- 



tions place original investigations in the fore- 

 front. Heads of departments are selected 

 largely on the strength of their qualifications 

 for research, and so far as circumstances per- 

 mit support is afforded for its prosecution. 

 Hence, if the great school of systematic bot- 

 any is to be revived in this country, the sys- 

 tematists themselves, i. e., those with the 

 equipment of the great herbaria behind them, 

 must take the leading share in the campaign. 

 This was my principal contention at York, 

 and I do not think matters will be remedied 

 until the herbaria become attached or related 

 in some way to the educational system. Un- 

 less our work is to be sterile we must take our 

 share in training those who are to come after 

 us. Robert Brown and Sir Joseph Hooker 

 are exceptions to every rule: if only we could 

 control genius in respect of time and place 

 of its appearance, all would be well; but ex- 

 perience shows that we have to depend on the 

 normal, and that these two men were not 

 normal is shown by the fact that none like 

 them have been produced for the past half 

 century. 



I should like to see members of herbarium 

 staffs ipso facto members of the neighboring 

 university, or, at any rate, a selection from 

 among them. It may be urged that if the 

 systematist is to discharge professorial func- 

 tions it must be at the sacrifice of some of the 

 duties which he at present performs. This is 

 very true. But it was one of my points that 

 much of the routine work which falls to his 

 lot is within the capacity of subordinates. 

 You want two classes in a herbarium: the 

 scientific workers who really advance the sub- 

 ject, and subordinates who would carry on a 

 great deal of the routine work. The former 

 would be free not merely to write monographs, 

 etc., along the accustomed lines, but also to 

 open up new lines of attack on old problems. 

 If ever there was a time when the future of 

 systematic botany was full of promise, it 

 should be the present. The perfecting of cy- 

 tological and anatomical technique and the 

 improvement in breeding methods place new 

 implements at its disposal for broadening and 

 deepening its work. Botanists should pull 

 together with a view to so modifying the 



