LIFE AND WORK OF CHARLES EDWIN BESSEY 5II 
tion with the use of compound microscopes. It is said that the 
laboratory method for advanced students was introduced at Harvard 
the year before, but this was wholly unknown to Bessey. 
During the month of July, 1881, he gave the first course in botany 
in which laboratory work was offered at the University of Minnesota. 
He used to tell with much pleasure of reminiscence how he "carried 
the first compound microscopes to Minnesota." These instruments 
were borrowed from the college at Ames for that particular session, 
since the University of Minnesota possessed no such microscopes at 
that time. There were none at Ames when he went there. Neither 
were there any at Nebraska when he went there. 
Bessey's students were numbered by the thousand and one of his 
greatest pleasures was to look over the lists of former students of 
his department and to picture them, oftentimes in distant lands, 
contributing of their thought and life for the betterment of mankind. 
Dozens of instructors in American schools and many investigators in 
the offices and laboratories of many institutions of learning and re- 
search owe their very life-ambition to the initial boost administered 
by Dr. Bessey at some critical moment. This was true not only of 
the botanically inclined but also of others whose primary inclination 
had drawn them into other fields. After a careful estimate made a 
few months before his death Professor Bessey came to the conclusion 
that in his forty-five years as a college professor he had had over 4,000 
students in his classes. This was the work closest to his heart and 
in this he felt that he had fulfilled a divine commission. The love 
for young people and for the work of the teacher kept him young in 
spirit and vigorous in action to the end. 
A large factor in moulding Bessey's standing as a botanist and 
in bringing him success as an educator was his series of text-books. 
In 1878 he began the preparation of a work on "Botany for High 
Schools and Colleges." The publishers had asked Dr. Gray to write 
this book, but he declined and recommended Professor Bessey. The 
manuscript was finished in January, 1880, and the book appeared 
August I of that year. This text went through two later editions, one 
in 1 88 1 and another in 1883. 
Then followed "The Essentials of Botany," the briefer course, 
of 1884. This book, which went through seven editions, the last being 
in 1896, enjoyed the enviable reputation as one of the most popular 
and most widely used texts in America. His last book, "The Essen- 
