Natural History, the Chamber of Commerce, the new Symphony Hall, Music Hall, the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Christian Science and the Spiritualist Church and the fine home of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the government postoffice building of granite, the Lowell Institute, for the support of free public lectures and various asylums, homes, etc. The city is adorned with statues and monuments: the great Bunker Hill monument and statues of Washington, Hamilton, Winthrop, Webster, Edward Everett, Charles Sumner, Josiah Quincy, Benjamin Franklin, Horace Mann and a
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BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
score of other noted Americans. Boston University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Boston College are excellent institutions of learning. Educationally, Boston is noted for its great free library with numerous branches (containing about 900,000 volumes), its Boston Athenaeum, with a library of over 200,000 volumes, its fine school-houses, many special and suburban high schools, the large per cent, of pupils in the latter and its remarkable school attendance. Very few children of school age are on the street. Several of the great publishing firms are located in this city. Boston has large manufacturing interests, and is the principal mart for the sale of wool, shoes and leather. The surface and elevated electric cars pass under the Common and Tremont Street, through a magnificent sub-way built by the city.
In foreign trade the city holds the second place to New York, (the extent of its foreign commerce, exports and imports, being in 1905 two hundred million dollars in amount), and ten lines of ocean steamers ply regularly between this city and foreign parts. The railroad system of New England centers mostly in Boston. There are two great union stations, the North Union and the South Terminal; the latter is the largest railroad station in the world. The chief railways entering the city are the Boston & Albany, Boston & Maine, New York, New Haven & Hartford and the Fitchburg and other railway lines. Population by census of 1910, was 670,585. The metropolitan district—Boston and suburbs—in 1900 had 1,162,197 inhabitants.
Boston University, located in the city of Boston, Mass., was chartered by the state in 1869. It has 150 instructors and over 1,400 students. It is a thoroughly equipped institution, and is noted for the facilities which it affords for advanced work in its graduate and professional schools. Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst is a branch of the university.
Boswell. See Johnson, Samuel.
Bos′worth, a market town of England, twelve miles from Leicester, near which was fought the famous battle of Bosworth, August, 1485. In this battle, the death of Richard III, who, deserted by his forces, had rushed into the thick of the enemy, crying "Treason, treason," ended the long civil wars of the Roses. At the close of the fight, the crown was found near a hawthorn bush, and was placed by Lord Stanley on the head of the new king, Henry VII, on an eminence which is still called Crown Hill.
Bot′any. The science which deals with plants. It should be understood in the outset that botany is one division of biology, and that it simply means a study of biology with plants as illustrative material. The history of botany is a very long one, but the real development of the science has taken place during the last century. Naturally, the first attention given to plants was to discover those which are useful to man for food, in the arts or in medicine. In fact, the medicinal use of plants was for centuries the only representative of a botanical science. A true science of botany, however, began with attempts to classify plants. Aristotle and Theophrastus had classified all plants as trees, shrubs and herbs, and there was no further attempt to develop a scientific knowledge of plants until the 16th century. It was then that students again began to arrange plants into groups, but these groups were very artificial. These attempts finally culminated in the famous artificial system of Linnæus, which was published in the middle of the 18th century and was in use to the middle of the 19th century. Since that time a great advance has been made in constructing what are known as natural systems of classification, which attempt to put those plants together which are really related. As a consequence, the subject of classification or taxonomy, as
