some, and interest in all who attended, and thus many came besides undergraduates, as Dr Ainslie, the Master of Pembroke.
The value of "practical work" put a stop to cram, and he was the first to introduce the examination of flowers, not only at Cambridge but for the degrees in the University of London. "He insisted," wrote Dr Hooker, "that a knowledge of physiological botany, technical terms, minute anatomy, &c. were not subjects by which a candidate's real knowledge could be tested, for the longest memory must win the day, the less did it test the observing or reasoning faculties of the men. He, therefore, insisted in all his examinations that the men should dissect specimens, describe their organs systematically and be prepared to explain their relations, uses and significations in a physiological and classificatory point of view; and thus prove that they had used their eyes, hands and heads, as well as their books[1]."
His natural bent and interest were in the investigations of the phenomena of plant-life, e.g. the colours of flowers, the laws of phyllotaxis and what would now be called biometrical studies, e.g. of the variations in the leaves of Paris and the cotyledons of the sycamore, hybridization, teratology and the origin of varieties, etc. The geographical distribution of plants and the effects of external agencies upon them were also specially studied, as is recorded in the note-book mentioned. He was thus a genuine Ecologist without knowing it. He published about 50 papers on botanical subjects during his professorship from 1825 to 1861, in which he was more than once the pioneer of special branches of study since taken up, as in the above mentioned hybridization and varietal differences under cultivation, etc.; for experiments were made on the specific identity between the Primrose, Oxlip, Cowslip and Polyanthus. He raised many varieties, which were often permanent or "Mutations"; though sometimes reversions appeared, concluding that when one form thus changed to another that was sufficient proof of identity.
Though his occupations were necessarily much changed at
- ↑ Quoted in Memoir, p. 161.
