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The British Association at Dundee. 
THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION AT DUNDEE. 
T HE meetings of Section K at Dundee must be considered as 
quite successful, for though few of the older botanists were 
present, yet there was a very large attendance of the younger 
generation. It cannot he said that the papers read were unusually 
exciting, hut nevertheless, taken as a whole, the meeting was very 
pleasant and instructive. The joint discussions provided a good 
deal of interest, though as is unfortunately often the case with 
carefully organized discussions, the fruitfulness of the result was 
perhaps scarcely commensurate with the labour expended. 
Presidential Address. 
Professor Keeble, the President ol the Section, delivered an 
address which combined entertainment with instruction in quite an 
unusual degree, and was full of happy figures and turns of 
expression. It is thus eminently “ quotable,” a characteristic 
shared by very few of the addresses of Sectional Presidents in 
this or any other year. 
The Faults and Merits of the Modern Botanist. 
The President’s first main thesis was that the modern botanist 
is a specialist who is not “ on speaking terms with the cultured 
general public”—a defect which is partly due to faults of educa¬ 
tion, though partly inevitable because “ as science becomes more 
complex, its followers think more and more in symbols, and those 
who think in symbols are apt to write in shorthand.” The faults 
of education are due to English University students being treated 
“ not as youths, but as men of mature mind.” “The professorial 
potter takes the clay as he finds it, and, no matter what its state, 
fires it forthwith. Were the assumption on which he acts 
well-founded, the method might be justified. If our undergraduates 
were, as we assume they are, well found in general culture, trained 
already in scientific method, familiar with the language of our 
fathers, and apt also to read and speak and write some other 
tongue, then let us take them straightway and bake them in the 
oven of specialisation.” But the thing is admittedly not so, largely, 
let a University teacher suggest, the fault—and the very grave fault 
—of our schools ; but according to Dr. Keeble because “as society 
grows older its young men grow younger.” 
Again, “ we are prone to forget that the twin gifts of youth 
are enthusiasm and idleness. The former we encourage, but the 
latter, falling within the category of morals, we visit with out- 
displeasure. There is, however, an idleness which is not laziness, 
but a resting period of the organism tired with the trouble of 
growing up.” Also, we may add, an idleness which is often found, 
alternating with bursts of productive energy, in those who are 
grown up, but have not settled down into rigid intellectual grooves. 
And those freer though less persistently laborious spirits we can 
ill spare. “ I could wish” continued Dr. Keeble, “ that our English 
Universities understood intellectual liberty as well as German 
Universities understand it. We are apt to mind our sheep too 
much, and to overrate the virtue of docility.”.... “ It is never too 
