Reverend JA Bates on the Challenges of Teaching Botany in 1896
This botanical history post was featured on The Daily Gardener podcast:
February 11, 1896
Dearest reader,
On this day, the Burlington Free Press of Vermont chronicled a moment both sobering and illuminating from the winter meeting of the state botanical club.
The Reverend J.A. Bates took to the podium, delivering an address that sliced through the polite veneer of horticultural society with a wit sharp enough to prick even the most complacent gardener’s conscience.
He began with a delightful, almost mischievous anecdote: a boy had penned a paper titled The Snakes of Ireland, which began very plainly, “There are no snakes in Ireland.”
What could be simpler, yet what metaphor this apparently innocent observation held for the state of botanical education!
Bates then declared with a candidness so refreshing it could scarcely be denied: “Botany is not taught in schools.”
In 1896, Reverend Bates lamented that “only one in forty students have studied botany.” He offered two rather insightful reasons for this botanical neglect.
First, most teachers were poorly prepared to teach the subject, lacking both knowledge and enthusiasm.
Second, and perhaps more amusingly, botanists themselves were too conservative, hiding the fascinating charms of their study behind an impenetrable veil of long, daunting Latin names.
One wonders, dear reader, how much of this remains true even today?
Are we still deterred from the magic of plants by layers of complexity and a lack of accessible teachers?
Reverend Bates’s words from over a century ago beckon us to ponder: what might happen if botany were truly embraced as a subject for all?
Could the gardener’s hands and heart be guided to greater wonders with just a touch more encouragement and less Latin obscurity?
As you tend your garden, might you muse on the possibility that the beauty of botany lies not only in its scientific names but in the stories and mysteries the plants themselves whisper—if only we listen?
