Semi-Centennial Volume, 59^ 



the science; and, like zoolop:y, it is no longer the mere tool of geology, 

 but paleobotany, or plant paleontology, has risen to a dignity of its own. 



The application of botany to human uses is revolutionizing agriculture, 

 and changing the whole field from an art to a science. Indeed the whole 

 science, to quote Professor Coulter, like so many others, has been made 

 anew in these fifty years. 



And what has been said of botany applies with yet greater force to the 

 old science of zoology. Then, like botany, it was chiefly a descriptive 

 science, the description and classification of animal life, and as such I. 

 studied it fifty years ago. Now it is a large group of sciences dealing 

 with the phenomena of animal life. Its growth even within my own 

 memory has been marvelous. In my youth it was chiefly the study of 

 taxonomy; then the more intimate study of gross structure, comparative 

 anatomy; then of microscopic anatomy, histology; next of the structure 

 and function of the cell, leading naturally into the study of the germ 

 cell, cytology; next the study of habits and environments, ecology; lastly 

 of heredity, or genetics. And each of these was practically a new science, 

 with its own votaries, its own laboratories, its own libraries. More than 

 in any other science evolution was the stimulus of its growth. The search 

 for the factors of evolution led to the theories of Weissman, which, how- 

 ever well they have stood the test of time in their details, served as the in- 

 spiring stimulus to experimental zoology, which has been the dominant 

 field of advancement in recent years. Mendel's discovery and its re- 

 discovery has been extended from botany to all biological science. And, 

 the more intimate correlation of zoology, chemistry and physics has made 

 a new science of physiology. 



As in botany, the practical application of the new sciences of animal 

 life to the field of agriculture has given a profound impulse to stock 

 breeding, changing it from an art to a science. And in the fisheries, too, 

 the zoological sciences are making great changes. 



The science of human anatomy is an old one. As a descriptive science 

 it approached perfection long ago more nearly than any other, because it 

 has to do so immediately with man. As a branch of the great science of 

 animals, zoology, it acquired first of all a dignity of its own, and its prog- 

 ress has been along similar lines and in like fields. Advances have been 

 made in the study of the human embryo, of the nerves on the basis of the 

 functional neurone system, in the structure of the cell, and of the pro- 

 toplasm. Not the least has been the vital culture in vitro of human 

 tissues, with its wide possibilities along new fields of investigations and 

 their immediate application to man's welfare. 



The science of paleontology, the history of animal life upon the earth, 

 has ceased to be merely the handmaid of geology. The paleontologist is 

 no longer the mere gatherer of curious petrifactions in the rocks to help 

 the geologist name his rocks. Those lifeless fossils of a half century ago 

 have become alive again, and their teachings have thrown a brilliant 

 illumination upon the origin, relationships, taxonomy and genealogies of 

 organisms. On the border between geology and biology it has united the 

 sciences so that there is no longer even a valley between them. Fossils 

 have explained many things that seemed inexplicable in the structure of 



