SECOND ANNUAL BANQUET. 47 
sidered, —and I speak of him without knowing a single 
thing about the man but what I have heard here to-night 
and what I have seen in your report. He provided for 
those who had contributed to his comfort in this life; pro- 
vided for those who had given him pleasure ; contributed 
to their pleasure in return; contributed to the various 
charities in your city, the various bodies who are grappling 
with poverty, with the various forms of human misery 
that in all large cities prevails and which so often needs 
the help of those who have means. He thus dis- 
charged his duty to those around him, — to his neighbor. 
And then, with the residue, he does what? He provides 
for all time a garden for this great city of St. Louis, a 
garden where rich and poor alike may come and enjoy its 
flowers, the only pleasure, as I was reminded to-night by one 
of the speeches, the only pleasure, as an old French writer 
has said, that increases instead of decreasing with age. He 
has done that for you citizens, but he has done more than 
that. And that isthe reason I am hereto-night. If it had 
been simply to do honor to Mr. Shaw for contributing to 
the elegance, to the comfort, to the benefit of this city, I 
would hardly have felt that I had an apology for appearing 
among you. But Mr. Shaw has done two things. He has 
established a school of botany, a school for the education 
of gardeners, — than which nothing, I might say, was more 
needed on this continent. We go to France and Germany 
and England and to different European countries, and we 
see the magnificent gardens that exist there. How is it that 
these gardens are kept in such admirable order, that there 
is so much skill, so much art, nay more, so much science 
displayed in the laying out and the management of those 
gardens? Because there is there, growing up year by year, 
a large army of professional gardeners. Where is there 
on this continent— where has there been in the great 
United States of America, or in the northern British 
Provinces which we now call the Dominion of Canada — 
where is there a school for gardening, a means of training 
