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290 University Instruction in Botany. [May, 
nicalities of one branch of the vegetable kingdom, and are in 
absolute ignorance of all the rest. Those who think a one year’s — 
course, as at present arranged, will help them as teachers, will 
find themselves without a general notion of the vegetable king- 
dom, without which it will not be easy to instruct others. The 
medical man will find that he would be able to recognize several 
useful plants were it not for the fact that they do not grow 
within several hundred miles of his home, and, on the other hand, 
that he has no knowledge either of vegetable histology, which 
would be a great assistance in his pathological studies, or of 
fungi, which are interesting in connection with the origin of sev- 
eral diseases. : 
If we look at the effect of the usual training on- the first class 
we have mentioned, those who really wish to become botanists, 
the conclusion we must draw is not flattering. Why is it that 
so few botanical workers are found in this country ? Where are 
the young men of ability and enthusiasm who ought to be work- 
ing up some of the interesting botanical questions? They are 
all — studying zodlogy. As botanists, we cannot of course ad- 
mit that botany is in itself any less interesting than zodlogy, and 
if we turn to Germany, for example, we find that the proportion 
of young men who enter on a botanical career there is as large as 
that of those devoting themselves to zodlogy. If at the present 
day we are feeling the want of young botanists to investigate or 
instruct, we must not forget that at the door of every botanical 
lecture-room the would-be enthusiast has encountered a manua 
of flowering plants, through which he must make his way if he 
would see any light beyond. What wonder that many were at- 
tracted to the other house, where manuals were not so much in 
vogue, and the study of development encouraged. It must be 
said with shame that not a single work on the development oF 
minute histology of any plant or group of plants has ever been 
written by an American, if we except some of Sullivant’s bry- 
ological works. It has finally become the prevailing belief that 
if one would do anything for botany he must find or make new 
species. It is certainly of the greatest importance that event: 
ually all species of plants should be described, but it is very ™J"" 
` rious to have one who has not a large library and herbarium at- 
tempt to decide what is new and what is not. 
We would by no means disparage the systematic study of 
phænogams, but by conveying the idea that such a study un 
derlies and is the key to the whole science of botany, numbers 
