'BACK TO NATURE' 



405 



lire to see its implications as toiu-liing 

 the other descriptive sciences. That 

 living nature is in essentially the same 

 ease with geology, and ])hysical geog- 

 raphy, and meteorology is oljvions. 

 Where would these sciences he today 

 had their leading investigators depre- 

 ciated field work and insisted that tlie 

 method of inference based on laljora- 

 tory experiments woidd yield all the 

 understanding needed for strictly sci- 

 entific purposes about the earth and 

 the atmosphere ? . . . 



There have been counteracting influ- 

 ences fortunately in such undertakings 

 as the great oceanic and continental ex- 

 ploring expeditions and the "surveys" 

 prosecuted by our national and state 

 governments. Probably the most po- 

 tent compensatory influence in our 

 country has been the work in agricul- 

 ture carried on by the nation and the 

 several states. The vast importance of 

 this for the material welfare of the 

 people is sufficiently recognized ; but its 

 importance to biological science as sucJi 

 is understood not half well enough. 

 What I wish to bring out particularly 

 does not concern the enrichment of 

 botanical and zoological knowledge, 

 greatly important as I regard this, but 

 rather the enlarging and liberalizing 

 influence on the public mind generally. 

 It seems to me probable that the total 

 educative value in natural science of 

 the national and state agricultural de- 

 partments, including the experiment 

 stations and the agricultural colleges, 

 is greater than that of all other school 

 and university effort combined. 



I can do no more than refer in the 

 briefest way to the larger, the philo- 

 sophic effect of the influence of agricul- 

 tural enlightenment on man's under- 

 standing of his own dependence upon 

 natiire. Innumerable peoples in all 

 ages and countries prior to the develop- 

 ment of agriculture as science have con- 

 ceived the organic products with which 

 their lives have been inseparably iden- 

 tified to be dependent upon supernatu- 



ral or unnatui'al agencies of one kind 

 and another. The transformation that 

 has taken place and is taking place (for 

 it is far from complete) in ideas and 

 beliefs because of the demonstrations of 

 nature's ways and laws here is of truly 

 enormous importance. It touches vi- 

 tally the whole gamut of human life, 

 esthetic, philosophic, and religious, no 

 less than hygienic, economic, sociologic, 

 and political. 



And consider a trifle more fully an- 

 other aspect of the same matter ; that, 

 namely, of the problem of overpopula- 

 tion. With advance in civilization, en- 

 tailing as it must man's ever-growing 

 reflectiveness on the conditions of his 

 race's continued existence and progress 

 on this earth, questions of the compe- 

 tency of the lands and the waters to 

 support the ever-increasing populations 

 inevitably press more and more upon 

 him. Now, beyond all question, of all 

 agencies which may be invoked against 

 this cloud on our mental horizon the 

 most potent is scientific agriculture. 

 Civilization seems to carry with it the 

 termination of its own progress unless 

 science be invoked speedily against this 

 result. . . . 



Eemedial measures all along the line 

 — philosophical, investigational, and 

 educational — are demanded. My efforts 

 toward building a research institution 

 for studying nature with all the rigor 

 of modern methods instead of with only 

 such fragments of it as can be brought 

 into the laboratory, testify to the great 

 importance I attach to the first and 

 second of these. In the third we are 

 confronted with very difficult questions, 

 especially in elementary education. . . . 



The difficulties, however, are not in- 

 surmountable. The main thing for a 

 beginning is a conviction of the impor- 

 tance of what is aimed at. Let the 

 leaders in biological thought and re- 

 search once Iiecome convinced that field 

 work is as fundamental to life-science 

 as a whole as similar work in geology 

 and the other sciences of the earth is to 



