4 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



After leaving school in 1885, Stewardson Brown entered the 

 offices of the Lehigh Valley Railroad where he remained until 

 1900 when he accepted the position of Assistant Curator at 

 the Academy of Natural Science in charge of the herbarium, 

 and there his real scientific career began. 



The writer became connected with the Academy as early 

 as March, 1888, and almost immediately Stewardson had begun 

 to visit the institution becoming a member on January 27, 

 1891. He soon made the acquaintance of Dr. J. Bernard 

 Brinton who was at that time heading a party of younger 

 botanists on Sunday and holiday collecting trips to points 

 in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. 



On these excursions he met many of the men with whom he 

 later became closely associated in the activities of the Botanical 

 Section of the Academy and the Philadelphia Botanical Club. 

 This Club was organized in 1892 by Dr. Brinton and the coterie 

 of young botanists that he had brought together. Brown was 

 the first secretary and in later years became the president. 



His first interest had always been botany and the service he 

 rendered the Academy in caring for the herbarium during a 

 critical period of its history when the volunteer workers of 

 earlier years were passing away and the entire arrangement of 

 the collection and method of supervision had to be completely 

 revised, will probably never be fully realized. During his years 

 of service in the herbarium he made the acquaintance of many 

 botanists of other institutions, notably Dr. N. L. Britton who 

 became a close personal friend. Brown also became affiliated 

 with other societies, being elected a member of the Torrey Bot- 

 anical Club, the Botanical Society of America and the American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as Professor 

 of Botany to the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society and 

 lecturer on botany in the Ludwick Institute Courses. 



He had a charm of character and a magnetism that drew 

 to him many persons interested in plant life, beginners as well as 

 those advanced in the study, and he soon took the place that Dr. 

 Brinton had earlier filled as the head of those whose activities 

 kept the Botanical Club in continued operation. He was editor 

 of the Club' s annual publication Bartonia, and spared no effort 

 to make the meetings attractive and instructive. ' 



