Economic Mycology.[1]
By J. Griffith Morris, Esq.
President of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club.
In the work of education during early life little is done to draw out and develop two of the principal faculties with which man is endowed—observation and manipulation. Habits of seeing quickly, observing accurately, and discriminating minutely are not acquired without learning to use the eyes. Nor are delicacy of touch with lightness, accuracy, and steadiness of manipulation without a similar education of the hands. Readiness and accuracy of investigation and observation are likely to be of more service to most men in everyday life than any amount of scholarship, whether classical or mathematical. Examining Boards are now doing much to enforce the study of science at schools, and the coming generation, not content with exclusively classical teaching, will go forth into the world better prepared to advance the material interests of mankind.
This earth is beautiful indeed,
And in itself appeals
To eyes that have been taught ta see
The beauties if reveals.—Montygomery.
From the study of any branch of Natural History two sources of advantage are to be expected—a beneficial result on the mental and physical powers cf the individual, and the practical utility of the knowledge gained. The student becomes a wiser and better man; be becomes elevated and refined, a love for the true and beautiful is created within him, and his enjoyments are increased in proportion.
Mycology is a subject with which the name of the Woolhope Club is especially connected; it well illustrates the truth of these remarks, and inasmuch as little progress can be male in its study without the aid of the microscope, additional educational advantages arise, for that instrument in itself demands the practice of patience, order, and observation, and develops the senses of sight and touch.
Mycology presents a wide and fertile field of research. The progress of recent science demonstrates more and more that the growth, reproduction, and life-history of minute funguses is of vast importance in the economy of nature. To their unseen causation are due most of those changes which affect organic life. Under their influences organic tissues alter their form of vitality.
What is called decay is in truth only a process to other forms of life, sometimes beneficial to man in the production of wholesome food, but more often injurious by causing disease and pestilence.
It is ten years since the Club commenced the study of Agarics, and that series of discussions and papers began which have since given so much renown to it. The subject was scarcely introduced when in the following year prizes for collections of funguses were for the first time given at South Kensington, and Dr. Bull took the chief prize for Herefordshire.
- ↑ Part of an Address read before the Woolhoape Naturalists' Field Club, at the Annual Meeting, held at Hereford, on April 23rd, 1878.
