4 PLANT PHYSIOLOGY 



3. Each must learn to appreciate the labor of workers in other 

 fields besides his own. Scientific men are often ignorant in general 

 affairs, and likewise the humanist frequently knows nothing of 

 the sciences. " Culture" at present seems to be based largely 

 upon a knowledge of the humanities, which is unfortunate for 

 the humanists because it makes their requirements so much easier 

 to attain. 



This lack of sympathy between the biological and physical 

 sciences on the one hand and the psychological on the other is 

 proverbial. When Faraday showed his invention of the dynamo 

 to Gladstone, the latter was quite unable to appreciate it and 

 asked like the good, practical man of affairs that he was: "But, 

 what good is it?" "Why, sir, presently you will be able to tax 

 it," replied the disgusted inventor. Taxation was something 

 Gladstone understood. One only has to look at the present treat- 

 ment of scientific matters in the general press to see how hope- 

 lessly ignorant of science are the average reporter and editor, 

 and as a sample of literary "science" at its worst (or best) one 

 might read Amy Lowell's "Sugar," in which she refers to sugar 

 beets that "Red as the eye of cats in firelight, . . . fatten sugar 

 in a crimson coat." Such "free verse" seems also to be free from 

 any connection with the truth. 



Why Study Science? — We study a science to accomplish the 

 three following ends: 



1. To learn a certain group of facts. The function of this book 

 is to present the elements of plant physiology. 



2. To learn something of the methods by which these facts 

 have been obtained. This phase of the work is handled largely 

 in the laboratory but is supplemented by reading the history of 

 the development of science. 



3. To stimulate the creative imagination. When new problems 

 arise we should be able to plan experiments or tests which will 

 help us solve these new difficulties and thus enable us to answer 

 our own questions. The possession of a creative imagination is 

 a prerequisite for doing original research in any field of knowledge. 



The Botanical Sciences 



The biological sciences are divided into two great divisions, — 

 zoology and botany. Zoology deals with animals while botany 

 is the science which treats of plants. Having thus defined the 



