126 
gardens of the city to have known how to check the chestnut blight, 
and how to cope with equally destructive diseases now threaten- 
ing several other kinds of trees: 
But of far greater importance than a knowledge of how to 
grow trees in a city, or how to combat the diseases of crop plants, 
is the instilling in the general body of our citizens of correct habits 
of thought and a correct attitude of mind in the face of such 
problems. To observe accurately, to record faithfully, to reason 
logically, to keep an open mind, to welcome truth regardless of 
consequences, quickly to recognize error, to make no compromise 
with charlatanism—this is the scientific habit of thought and work. 
It is the only method by which knowledge is advanced; it char- 
acterizes all research in this and similar institutions; it is the 
indispensable spirit of all scientific instruction, both elementary 
and advanced ; it is the greatest educational need of today. 
Never, more than now, was our educational atmosphere so sur- 
charged with a clamor for “ efficiency,” which, in many minds, is 
synonymous with the idea that the chief end of education is to 
enable one to get a living. But the scientific habit of mind, 
briefly outlined above, equips one, not only to get a living, but to 
live. To belittle the importance of equipping our youth to succeed 
in some vocation would be folly; it is greater folly not to recog- 
nize the importance of equipping them to spend their hours of 
recreation in something more wholesome and beneficial than 
movies and cheap vaudeville. 
To educate one to think straight and to keep his thoughts in 
the realm of the useful and beautiful is of more fundamental 
importance, is more “ practical,” if you please, than any other 
end to be sought by education. The knowledge to be obtained 
by nature study and the study of botany is of large importance, 
but the by products of these studies, as here indicated, are the 
larger values. The work of public instruction as organized at 
the Brooklyn Botanic Garden affords an additional opportunity 
for our citizens to obtain such advantages—knowledge in which 
they are interested so presented as to bring pleasure, to build 
character, and, in many cases, to serve as the foundation OE oa 
successful life work. This is preparedness of the most thorough- 
going sort, for it not only goes to the root of things, but it serves 
