J. C ARTHUR AND THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OF THE BOTANY DEPARTMENT
By George B. Cummins
Joseph Charles Arthur was born in 1850 and died 92 years later.
He was one of the "grand old men11 of American botany and certainly one
of the most productive.  It was my good fortune to have been associated
with him many of the last 12 years of his life, and my pleasure to
have been asked to review the man and his work in the 1978 volume of
the Annual Review of Phytopathology.  It is my further pleasure to devote the present Wright Lecture to Dr. Arthur and the development of
the Botany Department of the Purdue University Agricultural Experiment
Station.
Personally, Dr. Arthur was of small stature but large presence.
He was dignified, courteous, precise of speech, and careful of grooming;
definitely a man of the "old school11 in the best sense.  His wife called
him Joseph but I never heard others address him other than as DR. ARTHUR.
The most obnoxious back-slapper and first-name-caller would have hesitated to use "Joe." Likewise, during the years that I worked with him
daily he never called me George.
Now some biographical data.  Arthur was first alphabetically in
the first class to graduate from Iowa State College in 1872.  He earned
the Doctor of science degree from Cornell University in 1886. Honorary
degrees were conferred by the University of Iowa (LL.D.), Iowa State
College (D.Sc), and Purdue University (D.Sc).  Arthur was the first
botanist in the New York Agricultural Experiment Station and also in
the Purdue University Agricultural Experiment Station.  He was a charter
member of the Botanical Society of America, the American Phytopathological
Society, the Societe Mycologique de France, the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, the American Association of University
Professors, and the Mycological Society of America.  Arthur was an
associate editor, along with C. R. Barnes during the early years of
the Botanical Gazette, which was founded and edited by J. M. Coulter
of Wabash College.  The three also published in 1886 the "Handbook
of Plant Dissection", which soon was dubbed wht ABC book of botany.
The department of Purdue University, now known as the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology in the School of Agriculture and
the Agricultural Experiment Station, had its genesis in the fiscal
year 1887-1888 when Joseph Charles Arthur was appointed as the first
Botanist in the Experiment Station.  Arthur was no neophyte in the
profession because he had served in the Geneva New York Experiment
Station working, especially, with bacterial or fire blight of pear.
In a monographic review of fire blight, Baker in 1971, states "that
Arthur, rather than Burrill, first presented convincing proof that
bacteria could cause plant disease, and this was in 1884-1885".  The
convincing proof resulted from carrying out what came to be known as
Koch's Postulates.  I mention this to emphasize a characteristic of
Arthur's, i.e. thoroughness. Kern, in an obituary statement, had this
to say "The life and work of Dr. Arthur should serve as a great inspiration to ambitious young workers.  A pioneer spirit, real resistance
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