SECOND BANQUET TO GARDENERS. 71 
been established in any other place in this country, — 
namely, that a dinner should be given to gentlemen inter- 
ested in horticulture. Of course, being a yankee — at that 
time — being a yankee at that time, I began to ask why 
this was so. Why did Mr. Shaw make any such provision? 
The first reason, of course, was that Mr. Shaw wished to 
get together a number of gentlemen who would enjoy a 
good dinner. Certainly, so far, the enjoyment has been 
complete. I might have stopped there, and said that out 
of his kind heart he had made this provision for your 
pleasure. But, looking it over, I saw that Mr. Shaw 
was a very far-sighted man and that he had _ really 
a deep strong reason for founding —for establishing 
this feast. Mr. Shaw must have seen what every scientific 
man sees, —that for the advancement of knowledge there 
is necessary a strong, active co-operation between the man 
who is investigating and the man whois applying. I know 
that practical men have something this idea of an investi- 
gator, — that he is rather a dried up specimen of humanity, 
much given to books, living on very little food, dying late 
in life because he forgets to die sooner. Scientific men 
have a somewhat similar idea of practical men —I mean 
to say, a similarly false idea. ‘They have an idea that the 
practical man cares nothing for the truth. Now both of 
those ideas are radically wrong. After you work down 
into men’s reason for laboring in any way you find that 
every honest man is not working for money, he is not 
working for knowledge, alone; but he is working, if he be 
an honest man, to serve hisfellow men. The scientific man 
has as much a right to exist as the practical man ; and the 
practical man must exist in order that anybody may exist. 
Mr. Shaw saw this fact, and I believe that he estab- 
lished this dinner that these two classes of men might be 
brought together. He wisely arranged that the Director of 
the Botanical Garden should preside at this feast. If he 
had done nothing more, gentlemen, than to bring you 
together so that you might meet with a gentleman of 
