ven excepting the Germans--that this nation, I say,
should as yet have done nothing, or all but nothing, to teach in her
schools a knowledge of that planet, of which she needs to know more, and
can if she will know more, than any other nation upon it.

As for the practical utility of such studies to a soldier, I only need, I
trust, to hint at it to such an assembly as this. All must see of what
advantage a rough knowledge of the botany of a district would be to an
officer leading an exploring party, or engaged in bush warfare. To know
what plants are poisonous; what plants, too, are eatable--and many more
are eatable than is usually supposed; what plants yield oleaginous
substances, whether for food or for other uses; what plants yield
vegetable acids, as preventives of scurvy; what timbers are available for
each of many different purposes; what will resist wet, salt-water, and
the attacks of insects; what, again, can be used, at a pinch, for
medicine or for styptics--and be sure, as a wise West Indian doctor once
said to me, that there is more good medicine wild in the bush than there
is in all the druggists' shops--surely all this is a knowledge not
beneath the notice of any enterprising officer, above all of an officer
of engineers. I only ask anyone who thinks that I may be in the right,
to glance through the lists of useful vegetable products given in
Lindley's 'Vegetable Kingdom'--a miracle of learning--and see the vast
field open still to a thoughtful and observant man, even while on
service; and not to forget that such knowledge, if he should hereafter
leave the service and settle, as many do, in a distant land, may be a
solid help to his future prosperity. So strongly do I feel on this
matter, that I should like to see some knowledge at least of Dr. Oliver's
excellent little 'First Book of Indian Botany' required of all officers
going to our Indian Empire: but as that will not be, at least for many a
year to come, I recommend any gentlemen going to India to get that book,
and wile away the hours of the outward voyage by acquiring knowledge
which will be a continual source of interest, and it may be now and then
of profit, to them during their stay abroad.

And for geology, again. As I do not expect you all, or perhaps any of
you, to become such botanists as General Monro, whose recent 'Monograph
of the Bamboos' is an honour to British botanists, and a proof of the
scientific power which is to be found here