54 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
I suppose that there are some people yet who imagine 
that a botanical garden is simply for the cultivation of the 
esthetic in a man, a sort of place for the propagation of 
nosegays. I imagine that this opinion is very widely dis- 
tributed through the country. It is the only way that I 
can explain how it is that botanical gardens are not as 
numerous as universities. Now, I would like to simply 
make one suggestion. I would recognize in the outset the 
great wsthetic influence that is developed by a garden of 
this kind; but in the very nature of things that influence 
can only be local. It can only be imparted to those who 
are fortunate enough to be here and to visit here. Another 
more advanced thought was suggested and has been spoken 
of to-night, and that is that it is also for the study of 
plants from their economic stand-point, in their relations to 
mankind. I would like to take one step beyond that, 
because after all, that is only a selfish question: What can 
we make out of these plants for our own use? There is a 
great science that is clamoring for development, and that is 
the science of biology. There is no subject so important, 
ormoreimportant. There are no problems more recondite 
than those which pertain to the laws of life, and there is 
no field in which we can study or investigate the laws of 
life so well as in this field of botany. And therefore I 
would suggest that a botanical garden, beyond its wsthetic 
value, beyond its economic value, possesses within it 
that great wide range of values which appeals to the whole 
world around ; — that it is a place for the study of the laws 
of life. | ’ 
It is only in this way that this Missouri Botanical Garden 
can become world-wide in its reach. It is set here in the 
midst of a great flora, the North American flora, in the 
very heart of a flora which demands yet: years and years of 
unremitting study. And botanists are all recognizing to- 
day that in order to get at any correct conception of plants 
we must study their life histories; we must grow those 
plants; we must watch them from their start to their ma- 
