In 1872, Ferdinand von Mueller seized a moment when the Victorian government was intensely interested in education, to put a proposal regarding his own specialty of botany. Based on the idea that the best way to learn about plants was from plants, he sought to distribute sets of dried specimens, or exsiccatae, throughout the colony. Although hampered by his own troubled relationship with government, he was nevertheless able to place three fascicles in about 50 institutions not previously seen as repositories of this kind of material.

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to issue here [i.e. in Victoria,] as in many European countries[,] collections of indigenous plants for public instruction ... in connection with ... works under publication, as the best means to diffuse information on the native vegetation.[2]

The main idea behind Mueller's educational proposal in 1872 was to use plants, or rather 'collections of plants', to impart basic information about the names of, and relationships between, plants. In the nineteenth century, such 'collections' were also known as 'exsiccatae', a term that referred to the fact that they consisted of dried specimens. Typically an exsiccata comprised multiple copies of the same set of plants, that had been collected from areas in which they were regarded as 'indigenous', or 'native', in contrast to plants that were 'introduced', or 'exotic'. Each copy usually began with a printed page, as in a book, which included a title, date and place of issue, followed by a series of specimens, each one occupying a single page with a printed label bearing the specimen's scientific name, and information on where and when it was collected. The compilers of exsiccatae usually sold them in parts, by subscription, to private collectors, or to public institutions such as museums.[5]

Mueller believed that the educational value of exsiccatae was well known in 'many European countries'. This was a fact to which he could testify personally.[6] As a young pharmacy-apprentice in Schleswig-Holstein in the 1840s, he was required to construct his own 'herbarium', or collection of dried plants, in order to learn how to identify the suite of plants that, at the time, was the source of most medicines.[7] Mueller not only did this, but also formed a herbarium of most of the plants in his area. He also obtained specimens from collectors in other areas, including Lars Hansen, a teacher in northern Schleswig who, in exchange, used some of Mueller's specimens in an exsiccata.[8] Mueller also gained knowledge of plants by visiting the herbaria of other collectors, and the one at Kiel University, which institution he attended from 1845 to 1847. The Kiel University herbarium would have contained tens of thousands of specimens, including exsiccatae.[9]

In 1848, only a year after his arrival in South Australia, Mueller attempted to introduce his knowledge of exsiccatae into his new home by advertising sets of 'mostly indigenous' plants for sale in the South Australian Register. This may well have been the first such advertisement in Australia. Mueller predicted his sets of plants would be 'a valuable acquisition to public institutions, or an agreeable object of private curiosity at home', and if taken up by the public would also encourage his own further scientific enquiries 'into the riches of the Botany of our adopted country'. Each set of plants was to consist of 100 specimens, arranged in systematic order and with the seeds of each species also added.[10] Unfortunately it is not known if there were any takers for this exsiccata, but the fact that no further advertisements appeared in newspapers regarding its issue suggests that South Australians were not yet ready to loosen their purse strings for such a commodity.

The final claim in Mueller's proposal of 1872 was that a combination of specimens and literature was 'the best means to diffuse information on the native vegetation'. This claim was at least in part based on what he had learned in more than 20 years of trying to interest the citizens of Australia in botany, although, as his experiences in South Australia suggest, not all his attempts were successful. In Victoria, he labelled the plants in the Melbourne Botanic Garden so that visitors could find out the name and country of origin of any that caught their attention.[12] He also exhibited herbarium specimens for the instruction of visitors at a succession of international exhibitions held in Melbourne, beginning with one associated with the International Exposition of Paris in 1853,[13] and he provided herbarium specimens to the University of Melbourne for the use of its students.[14]

In 1858, Mueller sought to reach an even wider audience for botanical information by lodging a herbarium at the Melbourne Public Library (now State Library of Victoria). In correspondence with his ministerial chiefs, he argued that in such a location the specimens would be 'easier consulted than either at this office [i.e. at the Botanic Garden] or at the university' and, most importantly, could also be consulted in association with 'many valuable botanical works'.[15] In 1861, however, Mueller asked for the herbarium back, in part because it appeared, after all, to have been 'little consulted', but also because he now had spacious premises himself (adjacent to the Botanic Garden) where interested members of the public were likely to seek information on local plants; it would save him much labour if he did not have to make another collection for their benefit.[16]

While Mueller's herbarium and library probably suited the requirements of citizens who were already enthusiastic about botany, he still wished to attract new devotees to his favourite science. At the end of the 1860s, he found another opportunity to do so through a technological and industrial museum that was being established in Melbourne.[17] When this museum opened its doors to the public in 1870, botany was the subject of one of its four main sections. This meant that visitors encountered a range of botanical displays, largely contributed by Mueller, of labelled plant specimens, and plant products.[18] Nevertheless, unlike at the university or at Mueller's herbarium, the museum did not provide visitors with ready access to botanical literature to augment the limited notes on labels attached to exhibits.

In a lecture delivered at the new museum in 1870, Mueller summarised his conclusions about botanical education. To him, dried collections of plants were 'the most powerful means for fostering phytologic [i.e. botanical] knowledge'; accordingly, 'no school of any great pretension' or mechanics' institute should be without a herbarium (thereby noticing manual workers for the first time as possible recipients of his efforts in botanical education). In what can be seen as a precursor to his proposal of 1872, he offered to identify any numbered, duplicate specimens sent to him from public institutions, or from individuals interested in pursuing their own education. He also observed that botanical works on Australian plants, which were 'now extant in many volumes, can readily be attached and rendered explanatory of such collections'.[19]

The response of Mueller's ministerial chief, James Casey, to his educational proposal of 1872 does not survive, although it apparently included a request for a sample of specimens, which Mueller duly sent.[20] Mueller proceeded to include the following item in his budget for the year ending 30 June 1874: 'Issue of Educational Collection of Dried Plants, £90'. To this document, Casey attached a curt note: 'urgent I want full particulars that will shew the necessity for those items that I have marked' (which included the educational collection).[21] With a hint of frustration, Mueller referred Casey to previous correspondence, the sample specimens, and to a meeting where Mueller had 'had the honor to explain to you already personally the objects of this intended small special expenditure'.[22]

The protracted nature of Casey's deliberations about the educational collection was undoubtedly influenced by the fact that by now he had in his possession three antagonistic reports on Mueller's management of the Botanic Garden. These were complex documents, all tending towards the conclusion that Mueller's Garden was too 'scientific' for public requirements.[23] In May 1873, Casey abolished Mueller's position as director of the Melbourne Botanic Garden. Mueller was to retain the office of Government Botanist, under the control of another minister, James Francis. This represented a demotion for Mueller, but it was dressed up to him as a favour. He was being relieved of duties of 'minor importance', so that he could concentrate, without interruption, on 'those scientific researches to which you have already applied yourself, and, in doing so, have displayed great ability'.[24] Henceforth, the living plants in the Garden were regarded by the government as completely separate from the dead ones in the herbarium.

Although he tried to retain his composure, Mueller's dismay at losing the directorship is well documented in letters to friends.[25] To his new ministerial chief, Francis, he enumerated the projects he wished to continue as Government Botanist, including the educational collection of plants.[26] In ensuing negotiations with Francis about this project, however, it soon became clear that Mueller's management of the Melbourne Herbarium was under as intense scrutiny as that of the Botanic Garden. Francis required Mueller to restate his case for the educational collection and submit new samples, and then questioned details of presentation and production. Mueller swallowed the insults and complied, and was finally rewarded with grudging permission for the project to proceed, though without dedicated funds to pay for it.[27]

Despite this setback, by October 1873 Mueller had amassed most of the materials he needed for the first fascicle, or instalment, of the educational collection. When complete, there would be 100 copies of this fascicle, each comprising 50 sheets, with each sheet containing both a flowering and a fruiting specimen of one species (10,000 specimens in all). Each sheet would also bear a label containing the scientific name of the species, the botanist who named it, the publication in which it was first described, the Order (or Family) in which it was found, notes on its geographical distribution, the locality where the specimens were actually collected, and the name of the individual who collected them (Fig. 4). Each copy of the fascicle would also be introduced with a title page and concluded with an index. Mueller hoped to have copies ready for distribution in two months.

In the end, most of the specimens included in the first fascicle were collected by Mueller himself, not especially for the educational collection, but in the course of his nearly three-decade long career in Australia. Others were collected by employees, two of whom, Georg Luehmann and Carl Groener, remained with Mueller after he lost the directorship of the Botanic Garden in July 1873, and two of whom, Carl Schlipalius and Christopher Richards, remained at the Garden. The rest of the specimens came from members of a large network of collectors that Mueller had established across Victoria, including Daniel Sullivan, a teacher at Moyston, a small town west of Melbourne, and Carl Walter, a photographer and professional collector. Without the volunteers in Mueller's network it is doubtful that he could have finished even the first fascicle of the educational collection.

In November 1873, Mueller's project suffered another blow when he lost access to a laboratory building that he had been using to prepare dried specimens. Mueller protested to Francis, arguing that drying fresh plants in the herbarium risked bringing damaging insects into its collections, that there was no space in this building for drying anyway, and that he had been under the impression that the laboratory (which like the herbarium was located outside the Botanic Garden) was to be left in his charge. He also claimed, not entirely truthfully, that the collections in the laboratory 'were formed not on the expense of the Government (no fund being left me for that purpose), but with the aid of amateur collectors on my private expenditure'.[28]

Even when the contents of the laboratory were restored to Mueller, work on the educational collection remained slow. His official staff now consisted of only one assistant, Luehmann, and 'one or two orphan boys' who were drafted from a nearby industrial school, and were rewarded for their efforts by a penny a day, deposited directly into a savings account on their behalf.[29] To get the first fascicle of the educational collection finished, Mueller and Luehmann were obliged to work 'largely on Sundays & Holidays' and 'much in late evening hours on weekends and in evenings', although this regime was not new for Mueller at least.[30]

Fig. 3. The binding of Mueller's second educational collection, 1875

National Museum of Australia

Finally, in June 1874 (two years after his initial proposal), Mueller sent a proof-copy of the first fascicle to Francis. Although the folio-sized production was enclosed in sturdy covers, Mueller regretted that the means of his department were not such 'that any exterior elegance' could be employed in their preparation (Fig. 3). As to distributing the fascicles, he suggested to Francis that one copy should be sent to every mechanics' institute in the colony, which totalled about 75, thereby confirming manual workers as a target group. He gave no explanation for this decision, but perhaps he saw it as a remedy for past omissions.[31] 'As several amateur collectors have aided in the issue,' he added, 'I would respectfully suggest that a copy be presented [to them]'.

Francis left no record of what he thought of the fascicle, although his under secretary, Thomas Ware, noted: 'It is carefully got up[,] but if not carefully handled the collection would soon fall to pieces.' This led Francis to conclude that: 'It would be objectionable if not impracticable to send these cumbrous packages by post but where completed they can be sent here & I can arrange delivery through the various Members of Parliament.'[32] Before doing so, however, he fell ill with pleurisy, from which he almost died. Colleagues urged him to remain in office, but he declined,[33] and in a reshuffle in July 1874, Mueller and the educational collection suddenly became the responsibility of a new minister, Robert Ramsay.

Ramsay was presented with a list of 130 mechanics' institutes, libraries, athenaeums, literary institutes and German associations, from which 46 were chosen to receive Part One of Mueller's educational collection. It is not clear what selection process was used, or why more fascicles were not distributed. In a letter of September 1874, Thomas Ware, claimed that most of 'the principal Libraries in the Colony' had been given one, 'leaving a supply on hand to meet future applications'. Metropolitan institutions did well, scoring 9 of the 46 copies (nearly 20 per cent), despite their members being better situated to visit the herbarium than rural people (Ramsay's own seat was the urban 'East Bourke'). In the country, Ballarat received three copies of the fascicle, but the other major goldfield city, Bendigo, only one (Eaglehawk Public Library) (see Table 1).

1. Avoca Mechanics' Institute
2. Amherst Mechanics' Institute
3. Ararat Mechanics' Institute
4. Ballarat Mechanics' Institute
5. Ballarat East Public Library
6. Ballarat German Association
7. Benalla Mechanics' Institute
8. Buninyong Public Library
9. Beechworth Public Library
10. Belfast [i.e. Port Fairy] Mechanics' Institute
11. Blackwood Mechanics' Institute
12. Brighton Public Library
13. Brunswick Mechanics' Institute
14. Clunes Mechanics' Institute
15. Cheltenham Mechanics' Institute
16. Creswick Mechanics' Institute
17. Colac Free Library
18. Daylesford Mechanics' Institute
19. Dunolly Public Library
20. Eaglehawk Public Library
21. Emerald Hill [i.e. South Melbourne] Mechanics' Institute
22. Footscray Mechanics' Institute
23. Geelong Mechanics' Institute
24. Hawthorn Free Library
25. Hamilton Mechanics' Institute
26. Heathcote Mechanics' Institute [34]
27. Kew Literary Institute
28. Kyneton Mechanics' Institute
29. Mornington Athenaeum
30. Mansfield Public Library
31. Maldon Athenaeum
32. Maryborough Free Library
33. Prahran Mechanics' Institute
34. Portland Mechanics' Institute
35. Queenscliff Public Library
36. Richmond Public Library
37. Stawell Mechanics' Institute
38. Sale Mechanics' Institute
39. Sebastopol Mechanics' Institute
40. St Kilda Public Library
41. Talbot Free Library
42. Taradale Mechanics' Institute
43. Warrnambool Mechanics' Institute
44. Wangarratta Athenaeum
45. Williamstown Mechanics' Institute
46. Echuca Free Library
    

How was the collection received by the labourers and artisans for whom it was partly intended? As a group they are poorly represented in archives, although scattered references in reminiscences, letters and diaries may yet come to light in which they pass judgement on Mueller's efforts to educate them. Mueller himself seems to have been aware that it was unusual to get feedback from his target audience, and went to the trouble of sending Robert Ramsay a newspaper clipping in which the Ballarat Farmers' Club acknowledged receiving a copy of the second fascicle (despite not being on the official list of recipients for the first fascicle). In the clipping the club secretary is reported as saying that the collection was 'truly educational'.[39]

In the decade following the issue of the three fascicles, a trickle of requests for copies made their way to the government, suggesting that there were always some individuals in the community who appreciated Mueller's efforts. These included staff at a secondary school (Wesley College), a tertiary institution (Ormond College), and the Education Department of Victoria's teacher training institution (Table 2). In requesting a copy for this last body, Frederick Gladman, the superintendent, wrote:

I noticed that you, in your enthusiasm for botanical science, have prepared fascicles of pressed & dried native plants, which are available at various mechanics' institutions &c. If such a collection could be obtained for use by our students, it would be of great value ... I can promise that the specimens will be highly valued, & well used.[40]

In his educational proposal in 1872, Mueller took a form well known to him from Europe, exsiccatae, and suggested it be used in a new situation. This was the unsolicited botanical instruction of a group in the community not well catered for by existing institutions and literature. At the time of his proposal, the Government of Victoria, too, was intensely interested in educating its citizens; but hostility to Mueller's directorship at the Melbourne Botanic Garden, and frequent ministerial changes, meant that the response he got was never straightforward. Mueller's greatest lesson learned in putting his educational collection together in the 1870s was probably that getting things done required persistence, and persistence without much evidence of being appreciated. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to imagine that there were at least some young Victorians who may have discovered an interest in botany on the basis of Mueller's educational collection of dried plants. After all, this was consistent with Mueller's own history.

This paper has been independently peer-reviewed.