128 The Pi.ant Wori.d. 



Method, as a special professional technique, is all well enough 

 in such a subject as arithmetic, as Professor Suzzallo insists. 

 It is the method which exaggerates the importance of one idea 

 and the tendency to make methods uniform among all schools to 

 which he particularly objects, saving, ''It stifles teaching 

 as a fine art, and makes of it a mechanical Ijusiness. Under 

 these conditions onlv those actitivies which fit the machine 

 routine can go on. Thus it hap])ens that we memorize, cram, 

 drill and review, and soon the subtler processes of thinking and 

 evaluating, which are the best fruit of education, cease to 

 exist. ' ' 



Fortunate are the biological sciences, which lend themselves 

 so poorly to niethodology ; both the inherent nature of these 

 sciences and the temperamental structure of those who culti- 

 vate them make it difficult to place the harness of pedagogy on 

 a steed which moves so swiftlv. 



It is proposed to inscribe on the new laboratory of the 

 Brooklyn Botanical Garden the names of men, ancient and mod- 

 ern, who lia\e made noteworthy contributions to the science of 

 botany. The attempt to obtain a concensus of opinion from 

 living botanists as to who should be awarded the highest places 

 suggests some interesting reflections. Suppose any of these 

 worthies, from Aristotle to Linnaeus, came to Brooklyn and saw 

 their names adorning this temjile of fame, and were then shown 

 about by an assistant who should explain the use of various 

 stains and modants, the clinostat, the experiments in chemo- 

 tropism, the pedrigeed cultures, in short the outfit and work of 

 a modern botanical laboratory. One can easily picture their 

 confusion of mind. And yet it is very certain that few out of 

 the long list of names tentatively ]:)roposed could be omitted 

 without evident loss. So slowly did botany become a science; 

 so graduallv did its modern content take form; so far removed 

 from its simple beginnings are its modern methods and aims, 

 that we now seem quite out of their world; and yet the early 

 fathers mav well be honored for their fruitful thoughts that in 

 vaiious form and measure have helped, even remotely, to build 

 the foundation of the science as we know it. 



