August 3, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



165 



stored in the old fire trap that, be it said to 

 the disgrace of our Government, still serves 

 to house this Department ; and this collec- 

 tion, fortunate in escaping the hazards of 

 fire, formed the nucleus of the splendid 

 national herbarium now housed in the 

 crowded attics of the National Museum. 



Such is a faint picture of the conditions of 

 American botany as they existed twenty-five 

 years ago. "What American botany has be- 

 come to-day with its centers of scientific re- 

 search scattered throughout the country 

 from New England to the Golden Gate, with 

 its botanical publications in a healthful and 

 hopeful if not prosperous state of devel- 

 opment, with its agriculture and the arts 

 clearly recognized by the state and general 

 governments, with the work of the experi- 

 ment stations which in many states have 

 already passed their formative stages and 

 are entering the lists as centres of intelli- 

 gent botanical research, in the forestry re- 

 serves which are already fields of practi- 

 cal experiment and promise also to form 

 similar research centers, and finally in the 

 attitude of men of thought and men of 

 wealth who are devoting their activities 

 of brain and purse toward better making 

 known the importance of the plant world to 

 man in its utility and beauty, and seeking 

 for the advancement of botanical knowl- 

 edge throughout the earth, — these are the 

 products almost of the past two decades 

 and measure a progress unparalleled in the 

 history of scientific development in any 

 country and in any age. And this progress 

 has commenced along diverse and in some 

 cases unexpected ■ lines. After instruction 

 in botany ceased to be merely the analysis 

 of flowers, came the study of types lead- 

 ing the student to consider other subjects 

 than the flowering side of plant creation 

 opening up new lines in morphology and 

 plant development ; then came plant physi- 

 ology taking inspiration from the labors of 

 Sachs and others across the sea ; then fol- 



lowed plant cytology from the enthusiasm 

 kindled in the American students who for 

 years have formed the greater number of 

 workers in the famous laboratory at Bonn ; 

 later still plant embryology has for the time 

 been the botanical fashion and has opened 

 up new points of view for the study of plant 

 relationship. 



To revert once more to Amos Eaton who 

 may be regarded not only as the pioneer of 

 the long succession of botanical teachers in 

 America, but as well the author of the first 

 series of botanical manuals that have made 

 a knowledge of our flora accessible to stu- 

 dents, we desire to call attention to what he 

 considered the cardinal preparation for the 

 work of a botanical instructor " No one," 

 said he, " should attempt to give instruction 

 in botany who is not thoroughly familiar 

 with at least four hundred plants." It has 

 been reserved for the present generation to 

 produce botanical teachers who do not know 

 plants and those whose lack of botanical 

 perspective becomes intensified in the suc- 

 cessive crops of highly specialized students 

 that come out from their instruction ; and 

 we may well emphasize this early principle 

 which in the present generation is even more 

 essential as the first equipment of a genuine 

 botanist than it was in Eaton's time. This 

 leads us naturally to some thoughts and 

 propositions concerning the future of botany 

 in America, and some lines of training 

 necessary to make this future satisfactory. 

 It will be readily admitted that aside from 

 applied botany which has for its work the 

 making known of the plant world for the 

 greater comfort and enjoyment of the 

 human race, one of the highest aims of 

 purely scientific botanical study whether 

 cytological, morphological, or embryolog- 

 ical, is to determine the relationship of 

 plants to each other and the establishment 

 of a natural system of classification. This 

 has been the struggle of botanists from the 

 time of Jussieu to the present and every 



