130 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



in all seriousness, when we tr\- to look at this vexing problem 

 of nomencialorial eotles in that dry impersonal light which 

 slKiukl distinguish a gathering of scientists from a political 

 convention, the (|uestion that persists in obtruding itself upon 

 our minds is this : Why is all this intemperate vituperation di- 

 rected against those whose only ofTense is their inability to see 

 any other way of arriving at a standard code than that of in- 

 ternational agreement? ^'or when the smoke has all cleared 

 away, and we come down to what the editor of this magazine 

 calls "brass tacks," what is the "uiium iiccessariuni" about a 

 code? Since it deals not with the names of things existing in 

 nature, as do the other terms of scientific glossology, but with 

 mere inventions of the mind more or less arbitrarily adopted 

 to facilitate an easy interchange of ideas, it cannot be sub- 

 jected to the same rigid and exacting requirements. The fact 

 that one code is more "logical" than another gives it no ad- 

 vantage, unless it happened to be adopted first. Esperanto 

 has a marked logical superiority over English and French as a 

 written language ; but somehow we don't seem to see that these 

 illogical but picturescjue tongues are being crowded out as a 

 consequence. Even the "reformed" si)elling of the vernacular 

 so frantically advocated by certain pedagogues gifted with 

 evervlliiiig but a sense of humor does not appear to be gaining 

 gri)iuid with any \ery alarming rai)idity. People still a[)pear 

 to lind their wav about in cities like Paris and London, even 

 tliough the naming of the streets lacks the exact logic of Salt 

 Lake City; and those reforming spirits of the French Revolu- 

 tion, who laid violent hands on almost everything connected 

 with hum.-m life, from clothes to calendar, seem to have 

 stopped .short before devising a "logical" scheme for the use 

 of parents in naming their children. All these aspects of 

 nomenclature have this common element, that they have 

 gained a priorit\- based on common agreement, and have 



