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 Rh was the ruling pre-occupation of the period under consideration, a direct outcome of colonial expansion and consolidation. Fed on unlimited supplies of new material from the ends of the earth the taxonomic habit became supreme. What could an isolated student and recluse like Henfrey do to stem this flood? Circumstances were too strong for him, and founding no immediate school it remained for a later generation to take up the task.

Though the history of the establishment of the New Botany in England lies outside the province of this lecture, it is instructive, as a contrast in methods, to note the manner of its accomplishment. Henfrey, who relied on his pen, had proved ineffective to bring about a revolution. Twenty years later it fell to Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, then a young man, to succeed where Henfrey had failed. By his enlightened teaching and personal magnetism, Thiselton-Dyer aroused a widespread interest in laboratory botany. But the matter was not allowed to rest there. Holding as he did an important post at Kew, the strategic centre, he was able to obtain appointments in the chief Colleges and Universities of the country for the recruits whom he had attracted. In this way, by the exercise of an acute intelligence amounting to statesmanship, and in a very short period of time, the New Botany became everywhere firmly established.