PKESIDENTIAL ADDEESS. 29 



fortunate enough to possess one — for demonstration pur- 

 poses, still I think we at the same time pay more attention 

 to the museum. In one respect we are immensely behind, 

 namely, in the extent and equipment of our botanical 

 laboratories : but then we in this country are not in a 

 position to draw freely on state aid for such trivial and 

 unimportant matters as University Education. What is 

 contributed by our Government is dealt out with par- 

 simonious hand and after a deal of pressing. I cannot 

 help thinking that if only a few of the many thousands 

 which are just now being annually expended by County 

 Councils and other public bodies on what has been termed 

 Technical Education were distributed amongst the Colleges 

 and Universities to be devoted by them, at their discretion, 

 to the advancement of general scientific education we 

 might still hope to compete successfully with our 

 continental colleagues. Liverpool with its three-quarters 

 of a million inhabitants might then be able to equip the 

 laboratories of its University College on a scale which 

 would compare favourably with, let us say, one of the 

 smaller German universities such as Jena or Strassburg. 



I have now reached the end of my time if not of my 

 task. 



The Botanic Garden, in the history of its development, 

 as I have tried, however crudely and imperfectly, to shew 

 you, reflects the successive phases in the advance of the 

 science. 



What I have said of the garden is equally true of the 

 botanist himself in his personal training and his methods 

 of teaching — if he be a teacher. 



In Linnaeus' time the best botanist was he who knew by 

 name every herb of the field — however little he might 

 know of each. I am not sure that the ideal aimed at 

 in the 18th Century has been altogether abandoned yet. 



