ON THE POPULARIZATION OF BOTANY 465 



pudding figure of Cuban mahogany, the fiddleback, the bird's-eye, the roll, 

 the pigmenting of quarter-sawed rosewood and zebrawood, the clash of oak, 

 the leaf and oystershell figures, the peanut figure of Japanese ash, the rope 

 and mottle and broken-stripe figures. 



If I were asked the best methods that a popularizer should adopt I fear 

 I might be obliged to say that I am not sure. I mean that my own rules for 

 myself are not necessarily applicable to anyone else. And further, there are 

 three chief media of popularization, allowing for a few overlaps. That means 

 three different techniques. 



To begin with the book-reading public — the purchaser of a book is not 

 "the man in the street" (whoever he is) but a most exceptional sort of person, 

 one who goes into a bookstore, pays from $2.50 to $12.95 for a book, takes it 

 quite off the street and into his home, to read it. That being the case, you 

 should set your sights, if you are writing a book, for a very unusual intellect, 

 one quite as keen as your own, without, however, any preconceived interest 

 (of which you can be sure) in your subject. You have to write up to him, 

 not down. He is a doctor, lawyer, or other professional who is paying you 

 the honor of giving you his attention for as long as you can hold it. The best 

 you have to offer is none too good. 



The reader of a magazine may include the above people, but it is cdso likely 

 to include a large number of intelligent women. (If you despise women's 

 intellects, you'd be well advised not to write for magazines.) 



The reader of the newspaper is, in one sense, everybody, but nobody reads 

 all parts of a paper. Those who read "Nature columns," for instance, are 

 not usually Long Island R.R. straphangers, but men and women, especially 

 women, who are looking for the wonder and beauty in the things about them. 

 If wonder and beauty are words that make you feel embarrassed, there is 

 no danger of your becoming base, common, and popular. 



Finally, there is the choice one must make between impersonality and 

 being personal. Most scientists are very modest, or at least I suppose it is 

 modesty that causes them to state their facts with no reference to themselves. 

 There are times and places where this is decidedly the most appropriate 

 method. But I have noticed that the great scientists who have also been great 

 popularizers, Alfred Russel Wallace, William Beebe, W. H. Hudson, Auguste 

 Forel, and Henri Fabre, and (some of the time) Darwin, have taken the 

 reader's hand and led him up to the subject. Ask yourself what you would 

 rather read, an account of the conquest of Mt. Everest told personally, with 

 all the trials and errors, the sufferings, and emotions of triumph, by those 

 who adventured on that terrible peak, or an impersonal statement of the 

 topography of this mountain and an evaluation of the methods and equip- 

 ment used in conquering it. 



I particularly recommend that every popularizer should read the works of 

 Henri Fabre. I read him not in the hope that I could equal him, but as an 



