AmASi9ih3arm'}     Change  from  Old  to  New  Botany.  161 
countryman  a  Chilian,  whose  principal  occupation  seemed  to  be 
duelling  and  whose  English  vocabulary  was  limited  to  the  two 
words,  "  damn  Yankee." 
The  general  arrangements  at  Strassburg  were  the  same  then  as 
those  of  other  German  universities  at  the  present  time,  but  the 
method  of  working  in  the  laboratory  was  very  different.  I  was 
given  a  Char  a  to  study  and  in  a  couple  of  hours  reported  that  I 
had  studied  it.  I  was  told  that  I  had  not  even  begun.  Studying, 
it  seems,  meant  that  I  must  make  sections  through  the  scheitel  and 
trace  the  successive  ceil- formations.  But  how  was  I  to  make  a 
section  and  what  was  a  scheitel?  The  microtome  and  modern 
methods  of  imbedding  were  then  unknown  to  botanists  and  all 
sections  had  to  be  made  by  hand.  The  nearest  approach  to  im- 
bedding was  in  sectioning  small  objects  like  pollen  grains;  a  few 
drops  of  mucilage  were  placed  on  a  cork,  the  pollen  mixed  with  it 
and  the  whole  allowed  to  harden.  Then  by  holding  the  cork  in  one 
hand  one  could  make  sections  of  the  pollen  if  one  were  lucky. 
The  student  of  the  present  day,  when  hand-sectioning  seems  almost 
a  lost  art,  does  not  realize  what  skill  in  sectioning  could  be  acquired 
by  practice,  but,  like  playing  on  a  musical  instrument,  constant  prac- 
tise was  needed  to  keep  one's  hand  in.  Modern  technique,  which 
was  borrowed  by  botanists  from  the  zoologists,  has  of  course  many 
advantages,  especially  in  cytological  work,  but,  for  certain  work, 
hand-sectioning  has  its  advantages,  as,  for  instance,  the  rapidity 
with  which  sections  can  be  made. 
If  I  was  fortunate  in  my  fellow  students  at  Strassburg,  in  one 
respect  I  was  less  fortunate.  At  the  time  De  Bary  himself  was 
at  work  on  his  "  Vergleichende  Anatomie,"  which  was  published 
in  1877.  Anatomical  studies  were  not  his  strong  point,  but,  in  an 
unguarded  moment,  he  had  promised  Hofmeister  that  he  would 
write  the  volume  for  his  series  and  he  felt  in  duty  bound  to  keep 
his  promise.  We  should  have  preferred  to  have  had  him  working 
on  the  mycological  subjects  in  which  he  excelled,  but  the  manage- 
ment of  cell  cultures  and  the  technique  required  in  such  investiga- 
tions were  taught  to  his  pupils.  Rostafinski  took  his  doctor's  degree 
while  I  was  in  Strassburg,  with  the  thesis,  "  Versuch  eines  Systems 
der  Mycetozoen."  The  monograph  of  that  group  did  not  appear 
until  1875.  I  happened  to  hear  De  Bary  and  Schimper  talking 
about  Rostafinski's  thesis,  which  they  thought  was  a  good  work, 
although  they  regretted  that  he  had  made  so  many  genera.  What 
