PLACE OF PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 3 



knowledge than many of the other sciences. The physiologist must 

 be a chemist, physicist, mathematician, and biologist all in one. 



A Liberal Education. — Let us suppose we are placed in a room 

 which contains one window with variously colored panes of glass 

 in the fashion described above. The colored sections affect both 

 the color of the room and the landscape as seen through them. 

 The room will be a mixture of different colors with no apparent 

 pattern, and the world outside will likewise be of different colors 

 as it takes on the color of the pane through which it is viewed. 



But now, thanks to our university organization of studies, we 

 are able to cover all the panes except the one we wish to use and 

 to see the world for the time being through any one of the colors 

 we choose. Obviously, both the method of selection and the use 

 of all the panes have advantages and disadvantages. The world 

 seen through the eye of a biologist seems all biology; through that 

 of an historian, all history. The student must aim "to see life 

 steadily and see it whole." This means that all lights must be 

 used and as many sciences must be studied as possible. As Roger 

 Bacon realized several centuries ago: "All the sciences are con- 

 nected and foster one another with mutual aid. They are like 

 parts of the same whole, every one of which accomplishes its own 

 work, not for itself alone but for the others also." 



Our allegory cannot be taken too seriously. Physicists do not 

 see things red, biologists are not green, nor are the psychologists 

 always blue. Neither is life a mere pane of glass to look through. 

 There are, however, certain lessons which we may profitably learn 

 from this before commencing the study of plant physiology. 



1. We must remember the importance of philosophy as the 

 mother of the sciences. All of them have come from her and 

 then disowned her when they grew up; children often have this 

 way of neglecting the old folks in our very modern period. As 

 late as forty years ago physics was called "natural philosophy." 



2. The necessity of a broad education can here be seen. We 

 cannot know a thing well if we see it from only one point of view. 

 Intense specialization should not commence until after the four 

 years of general college training. Although it has been said that 

 "the man of science must believe in a real world and to mix meta- 

 physics and experimental science is fatal," it does not follow that 

 the student of either science or metaphysics will be harmed by 

 knowing a little of the other. 



