ADDRESS TO THE Members of the University of Cambridge, ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF IMPROVING, AND ON THE FUNDS REQUIRED FOR REMODELLING AND SUPPORTING, THE BOTANIC GARDEN

Summary

AN ADDRESS, &c.

Although the Grace recommended to the Senate by the Botanic Garden Syndicate has been rejected, I understand the minority consisted of more than two-fifths of the members who voted on the occasion. From this circumstance, and from what I know of the opinion of some of the influential Members of the Senate, I presume the rejection of this Grace (which merely went to the extent of proposing another Syndicate) must be taken rather as a decided expression of opinion against the expediency of laying any tax whatever upon the University for the object proposed, than as a determination to resist all improvement in an establishment which has become utterly unsuited to the demands of modern science. I shall therefore venture to address a few observations to the members of our University, inviting attention to what may be considered requisite for a modern Botanic Garden; and to enquire whether some means cannot be devised for obviating the necessity of our taking any step which might be viewed as a retrograde movement, so far as respects the interests of Botany among us. But before I do this, I trust a few observations concerning the position which Botany and the other Natural Sciences occupy in Cambridge, will not be considered as an attempt on my part to cast any slur upon the resident members of the University, for their not having done what they scarcely possess the power of doing, without either a direct tax, or diverting funds which have been entrusted to them for specific purposes, to objects for which they were not originally destined to be applied.