14 EAELY DAYS 
cottagers. On the first excursion on which I was taken, 
when a boy, to Loch Lomond, there was no inn at Tarbet, 
and we all slept there in our clothes, on heather spread on the 
floor of a cottage ; on another occasion when I was allowed 
to join the party (more for fishing than for botanising) on an 
excursion to Killin, we walked the whole way from the head 
of Loch Lomond along the old military road made in the 
previous century by General Wade, eulogised in the well- 
known distich : 
If you'd seen these roads before they were made, 
You'd have lift up your hands and blessed General Wadcc 
If I were asked what I regarded as of most importance to 
the student in the manner of my father's teaching as sketched 
above, I would answer that it taught the art of exact observa- 
tion and reasoning therefrom, a schooling of inestimable 
value for the medical man, and one that is given in no other 
profession, but which ought to come, in this country, as it 
does in Germany, early in the education of every child. 
I have met many of my father's pupils abroad, in India, and 
the colonies, who have told me that these botanical lectures 
gave them the first ideas they had ever entertained of there 
being a natural classification of the members of the vegetable 
kingdom. Then with regard to the results, in a botanical 
point of view, the magnetism of the lecturer and the interest 
of the subject imbued many of his pupils with a love of science 
that proved permanent and fruitful. They made observa- 
tions and collections for their quondam professor in the tem- 
perate or tropical climates of both hemispheres, some of 
them throughout their lives, which have very largely con- 
tributed to a knowledge of the flora and vegetable resources 
of the globe. 
Not only was Sir William Hooker a great teacher and 
administrator, but a most prolific writer. His writings were 
unequalled in the number and accuracy of the plates with 
which they w^re illustrated. The number of these his son 
estimated at 8000, of which 1800 were from his o\\ti drawings. 
His systematic work covered a wide range, and, apart from 
its intrinsic value, has a peculiar interest here in its relation 
to the systematic work of his son. His publications on the 
