Asa Gray.

Some time ago there appeared in the DAILY CRIMSON an editorial mentioning the deplorable ignorance that students showed when questioned by outsiders about some of the great men now connected with the University. In addition to this suggestion that Harvard men should endeavor to know something about the most important of the professors, there might have been a similar suggestion concerning some of the older worthies who have had some previous connection with the University, and who have acquired such a wide spread fame that any man of average information, whether a Harvard man or not, ought to know something about them.

One of the most famous men that has ever had any close connection with Harvard was the great botanist, Asa Gray. Although Dr. Gray was not a graduate of Harvard, his connection with the college has been so intimate, and his devotion to her so strong that he might fairly be called a Harvard man. He came here in 1842 when he was made Professor of Natural History. When he began his task he found the botanical collection hardly more than a small botanical garden. The work that he must have spent in building up his herbarium is shown by the fact that when, in 1864, he presented this great treasure of his to the college, it contained 200,000 specimens.

In all his collecting and classifying, Dr. Gray never did any work after dark. He began working directly after breakfast, and devoted himself so intensely to his studies that he could not bear interruption.

He was what might he called a "natural" worker. He was the first to break away from the old idea of classification and adopt a more natural one. His clearly written books show him again as a lover of the natural. Besides being a botanist, Dr. Gray was a great thinker. He worked out the philosophy of the origin of the species even before Darwin, and Darwin called him "the first of any American in the development of his judicial sense."

In all his work Dr. Gray always had in mind one high end. He never considered that Natural History was out of keeping with religion. Mere classification he always considered as dead work.

Dr. Gray resigned his professorship at Harvard in 1873. He died a little over three years ago; before his death he presented the college with a bronze bust of himself which is now to be seen in the botanical museum.