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Alexandre von Humboldt, while commonly thought of as a 
geographer, included in his encyclopedic interests the geography 
of plants, and must be regarded as among the founders of phyto- 
geography ; his contributions to the subject were scholarly and 
fundamental, and became a great stimulus to further work. 
From the second consideration, namely, that the building is 
located in North America, some choices would obviously be 
different than they would be if the building were located in some 
other country. Other things being equal, any given choice would 
naturally fall to an American rather than to a European botanist. 
In fact, it may be a debatable question whether the choice ought 
not so to fall in some instances even if the “other things” were 
not strictly equal, but somewhat in favor of the foreigner. 
On the other hand, in assigning scientific honors, it must always 
be kept in mind that science knows no country. Contributions 
to human knowledge, wherever made, belong to the entire world, 
and science is equally advanced by any given discovery, regard- 
less of the country where it was made, or the nationality of the 
worker. This principle has been recently conspicuously recognized 
in the Nobel foundation. - It is referred to here partly because the 
query has been raised in one or two quarters as to whether the 
list of names chosen for our buildings did not contain “a large 
number of foreigners for a botanic garden in America,” or 
whether “American botanists were not conspicuous by their 
absence.” 
We believe it would be very unfortunate if such a view were 
to dominate in the selection of purely scientific honors. A build- 
ing for the United States Naval Academy could not very appro- 
priately be adorned with the names of naval heroes of other coun- 
tries; but the Republic of Science is one, the world over. After 
all, it is botany and not one’s country, for which botanic gardens 
are established. 
However, of two men, one an American, the other a foreigner, 
whose services were quite as much to their country as to the 
science—such, for example, as describing the flora of hitherto 
little known regions, though contributing no new principle or fun- 
damental fact—the choice of names should fall on the one in 
