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a result of the world war, and added that science in general, and 
botanical science in particular, share in this opportunity, and that 
the close of the war should find such institutions as ours with 
plans matured to meet it. The end of the war came sooner than 
was then anticipated and, while most scientific and educational 
institutions have their plans matured, or well under way, in 
many cases funds are inadequate to carry such plans into effect. 
Such is the case with the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and I fee 
that nothing is now more important for us than to bend every 
effort to realize these plans, which include the increase as well as 
the diffusion of a knowledge of plant life. As the vice-president 
and chairman of the section of zoology of the American Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science in his retiring address of 
1918 well said: 
“We may sometimes discover quite munificent provision for 
education in a too narrow sense, with little apparent recognition 
that the subjects covered are still little known or crudely assem- 
bled. Extended and careful investigation should be the first 
effort in order that accurate and useful knowledge may be avail- 
— 
able for instruction.” 
The indispensable service rendered by botany and botanists in 
the world war, and the extent to which the results of research 
in pure botany found practical application in innumerable ways, 
ranging from the supply of sphagnum moss for surgical dress- 
ings to the larger problems of forestry, agriculture, and food 
production, has been a revelation not only to the layman, but, in 
a less degree, to botanists themselves, 
But the vital necessity of scientific research is not to be argued 
solely, nor even chiefly, on the ground that somebody may some- 
ica- 
— 
time discover a fact or a principle capable of economic app 
tion. The improvement of natural knowledge has always been 
recognized as an end sufficient in itself, and the importance of 
organized effort to this end has won increasing recognition since 
the foundation in 1666 of the Royal Society for the Iimprove- 
ment of Natural Knowledge. 
The matter could not have been better stated than in the fol- 
lowing words of Elihu Root, at the initial meeting of the Advi- 
