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By the scientific and educational opportunities which it can 
afford our citizens, by diffusing in this community, and from this 
community as a center, a knowledge and love of plants, by 
botanical investigations in the realms of pure and applied science, 
the Brooklyn Botanic Garden can yearly render to the City of 
New York a service whose value will be far in excess of any 
sum of money that will ever be necessary for its annual 
maintenance. 
At the opening of the Pasteur Institute, in Paris, in 1888, the 
founder of the science of bacteriology, near the close of his 
address, spoke as follows, smarting, as he always did, at the 
memory of the events of the Franco-Prussian war: 
“If science has no country, the scientist should have one, and 
ascribe to it the influence which his works may have in this 
world. If I might be allowed, Mr. President, to conclude by a 
philosophical remark inspired by your presence in this Home of 
Work, I should say that two contrary laws seeem to be wrestling 
with each other nowadays; the one a law of blood and of death, 
ever imagining new means of destruction, and forcing nations to 
be constantly ready for the battlefield—the other, a law of peace, 
work, and health, ever evolving new means of delivering man 
from the scourges which beset him.” 
These words seem written for the present occasion. Almost 
the entire civilized world is at war, but the ultimate triumph of 
freedom over tyranny, of civilization over vandalism, of right 
over wrong, may now be confidently predicted; peace, let us 
hope, is not far distant. In the realm of the intellect there is 
perpetual conflict of light over darkness, right over wrong, knowl- 
edge over ignorance and superstition. But the strongholds of 
ignorance and superstition, while perpetually yielding, are 
eternally holding out. We shall never know it all; there will 
forever be ample opportunity for and need of scientific research— 
of the advancement and diffusion of knowledge. This is man’s 
largest opportunity, the ultimate source of his greatest happiness. 
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