AOTIVERSAKY PUBLICATIONS. 
THE VALUE OF A STUDY OF BOTANY.* 
When I accepted the invitation to speak at this banquet, 
the Chancellor of Washington University, through whom 
the invitation had been most courteously conveyed, took the 
trouble to have sent to me the Annual Reports of the Garden 
containing the addresses which have been deUvered on occa- 
sions similar to this. I, of course, felt it my duty to read 
every one of those addresses, and when I concluded the last 
of them I was in doubt as to the real intentions of the 
Chancellor. For if he had desired to alarm me, to create 
a self-distrustful spirit within me, and make me shy, 
he could not have taken a more effective means to that end. 
I acquit the genial and distinguished gentleman of having 
cherished any such malicious design. I confess that 
after reading those addresses I had various and sundry 
misgivings as to whether after all I had any message to 
bring to you that was worthy of the occasion, and not a rep- 
etition of what had already been said. But notwithstanding 
I am exceedingly glad to be with you, and to add my 
tribute to those which others have paid to a man whom we 
all of us recognize as having been a great public benefac- 
tor. It seems to me that this splendid city of the 
great Mississippi Valley can never have numbered among its 
citizens a man more deserving than Henry Shaw to have 
his name spoken with admiration and honor. The people 
whose home is here have on other occasions been told how 
