530 BOTANICAL OPPORTUNITY. 



an investigator than that he shall be reasonably busy with thought 

 fully j)lanned. study is and has always been antagonistic to the perform- 

 ance of his best work; and the requirement of some institutions that a 

 bulletin shall emanate from each department at stated intervals, while 

 it insures quantity in publication, generally does so at the expense of 

 quality of attainment. As a rule, genius, which, left to itself, now and 

 then leaps to the most unexpected accomplishments, is most effectively 

 repressed by close supervision. It is tolerant of guidance, but not of 

 the goad; and yet, on the whole, perhaps, both guided and driven, if 

 this is done wisely, it accomplishes most, for in harness it becomes plod- 

 ding research, which is dull, to be sure, but, if persevering, productive 

 of cumulative results which become of incalculable importance. In 

 fact, whether fortunately or unfortunately I shall not attempt to say, 

 the world has come to recognize the slow but sure progress of research 

 as in the main more desirable than the irregular and intermittent leaps 

 of genius, though the two are closely akin — patient labor over endless 

 facts, on the one hand, and broad observation and untrammeled thought, 

 on the other. 



If, everything considered, it is slow and persistent investigation, 

 rather than sudden inspiration, to which we must look for the accom- 

 plishment of the greatest collective results in botany, it is equally true 

 that the individual student is more likely to build his reputation on the 

 summation of the small accomplishments of many days of close appli- 

 cation than to arrive at some great discovery by a leap; and this, quite 

 aside from the fact that the latter result is entirely impossible to many 

 a man who in the other way may still hope to be of great usefulness. 

 It has been said that there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken 

 at the flood, leads on to fortune, and no doubt what is true in the mili- 

 tary, literary, and commercial world is equally true in the smaller 

 realm of science. In fact, I fancy that each member of ray audience 

 has in mind some one preeminent occasion which may have looked 

 small or large at the moment, but the seizing or neglect of which he 

 now sees marked a turning point in his scientific career. But, it will 

 be seen, it is not of the one great opportunity that I would now speak. 

 Improving it always has marked and always will mark the turning 

 point of life, but unfortunately the bridge can not be crossed before it 

 is reached, and great as the value of a true and wise friend's counsel 

 then is, it can not be replaced by any generalities in advance; there- 

 fore it is to the countless lesser opportunities, repeated with almost 

 every day that dawns for us, that I turn, in the hope that something 

 helpful may be said of them, and in the firm belief that in them lies 

 the making of any intelligent and indefatigable young man. 



To the investigator, breadth of foundation is even more necessary 

 than to the institution founded for his use, for while the latter should 

 endure for centuries, and may be remodeled and improved at any time, 

 he is limited to a siugle lifetime and can rarely in mid life or later 

 repair the deficiencies of ill advised or defective training. Kot only 



