1 64  Change  from  Old  to  New  Botany.  {^'J^i'im™' 
and  animals,  whereas  in  reality  they  are  the  study  of  plants  and 
animals  in  all  their  relations  to  one  another  and  to  their  surround- 
ings. Huxley  and  Martin's  book  was  extensively  used  in  this 
country  and  was  in  many  ways  excellent.  The  criticism  might  be 
made  that  it  was  not  well  proportioned.  Without  saying  that  it  was 
all  lobster,  there  was  so  much  lobster  and  so  little  of  plants  that 
there  was  not  enough  to  make  a  good  lobster  salad.  Soon  it  be- 
came the  habit  of  young  persons  who  knew  precious  little  about 
either  plants  or  animals  to  call  themselves  biologists,  disdaining  to 
be  called  botanists  or  zoologists.  It  does  not  follow,  however,  that 
because  one  is  neither  a  botanist  nor  a  zoologist  one  is  to  be  con- 
sidered a  biologist.  Trustees  of  colleges  and  similar  institutions 
were  given  to  understand  that  a  superior  race  of  beings  had  arisen, 
the  biologists,  and  that  botanists  and  zoologists  had  had  their  day. 
Colleges  being  always  impecunious,  this  information  was  gladly 
received  by  their  governing  boards.  By  calling  their  zoologists 
biologists  they  could  escape  appointing  professors  of  botany.  This 
clever  device  for  saving  a  salary  worked  very  well  for  a  few  years, 
but  at  last  it  became  evident  that  the  teaching  by  a  zoologist  with 
the  aid  of  a  text-book,  how  to  distinguish  a  yeast  cell  from  a  fern 
prothallus  and  a  fern  prothallus  from  a  germinating  bean,  was  not 
all  that  was  wanted  in  our  colleges,  although  it  might  have  been 
sufficient  in  a  kindergarten.  The  epidemic  of  biology,  although  it 
hindered  for  a  time  the  development  of  botany  in  England  and 
America,  fortunately  never  spread  to  other  countries. 
Although  garrulity  is  the  privilege  of  old  age,  I  feel  that  I  am 
still  too  young  to  take  up  more  of  your  time  this  evening.  This 
occasion,  in  which  the  body  as  well  as  the  soul  naturally  participates, 
seemed  to  me  to  call  not  so  much  for  a  formal  historical  account 
of  botany  in  my  day  as  for  a  series  of  personal  reminiscences, 
more  or  less  anecdotical  in  form,  which  would  throw  a  little  light 
gained  from  the  experience  of  one  who,  although  he  has  lived 
long,  hopes  that  he  has  not  outlived  sympathy  with  the  present,  on 
some  of  the  steps  by  which  our  present  advanced  position  among 
the  botanists  of  the  world  has  been  reached.  It  has  been  my 
fortune  to  see  the  old  order  of  things  overturned  by  the  appearance 
of  the  "  Origin  of  Species  "  which,  by  freeing  science  from  the 
fetters  of  a  semitheological  bias,  opened  the  way  to  a  free  scientific 
study  of  the  distribution  of  plants  and  animals  and  the  great  ques- 
