Crawfordsville, Ind. – Aug. 24 '80
Prof. C. E. Bessey:
Dear Sir:
I have received notification
of the mailing of your Botany from
Holt & Co., but have not received the book
yet. I am well acquainted with it however
through copies received at Cambridge during
my recent visit there. with very decided
opinions regarding the study of physiological
botany, you may be assured that I welcome
this new departure as exactly the thing I
want. It goes this coming term, into
my laboratory class in physiology &
greatly simplifies my work, for it saves
some of the lecture drudgery. Some lectures,
of course, I will have to give, for what
honest teacher does not?, but I can now
give them to pupils when knowledge
has been based on your simplified physiology &
I imagine their attainments will be much
more rapid & satisfactory. My only criticism
is, that the two parts of the book
do not seem to belong together. Both are
valuable, & the last one specially unique,
but they will never be wanted at the
same time. My class will study
the first part, but there is neither time
or place for the second & it the bulkier.
Some of our courses are large enough
to include 2 or 3 terms work in botany,
