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155
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and to leave undone and unsaid the unpleasant. This was feature of Bessey's general life and in thus living he performed a service the extent of which is probably not appreciated by those unfamiliar with its magnitude and significance.
But Bessey was best known to Nebraskans and to those in the University as "Professor" Bessey, the vigorous enthusiastic and devoted exponent of the cause of education and the fatherly friend of the student. Except for a few hundred dried specimens, many of which indeed were poorly prepared and even incorrectly named, there was no botanical equipment in the University when he entered upon his second and last professorship in this institution. Truly, Professor Bessey was all that there was of the department of botany in the University of Nebraska in 1884. But it was not long until there were students, laboratories, library, microscopes, herbarium and other equipment abundance. As a result of his labors and the stimulus of his teaching the herbarium has grown until now there are more than 35,000 specimens in the herbarium of the Botanical Survey of Nebraska and the general collection contains more than 300,000 additional specimens which represent nearly all of the floras of the world. The botanical library has grown from nothing in the beginning to a very useful collection containing several thousand botanical books, thousands of pamphlets, and nearly all of the leading botanical periodicals of home and foreign publication in complete files. The laboratories have grown from a room or two in University Hall or in the Old Chemical Laboratory and later to several rooms in Nebraska Hall. His department was always crowded and it is especially sad that he did not live to enjoy more commodious quarters in the new building which bears his name.
Bessey's students were numbered by the thousands. One of his keenest delights was to page over the lists of former students of his department and to picture their lives and their labors, often in distant lands, all contributing of their thought and effort to the advancement of science and the
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