president's address — SECTION D. 135 



Institutions to scientific activity. It cannot be said that either 

 zoological or botanical science has made any great or notable 

 strides during recent years or at least during the war period. 

 War IS a period of destructive activity, and, during war, sciences 

 which. lend themselves more readily to utilization for destructive 

 purposes, such as chemistry and physics, are more stimulated to 

 progress than those which are connected with productive activity, 

 su'ch as agriculture, forestry, entomology, zoology and botany. 

 As the result of the waste and destruction due to war, the scarcity 

 of all ccmmo'dities necessitates the s^cientific use of all possible 

 means of encouraging production, and restores to the botanical 

 and zoological sciences their natural importance as factors in pro- 

 ductive activity. One would think that the mere fact that all 

 the food materials, and all the energy which keeps the organic 

 world going, are directly or indirectly derived from green plants 

 would be sufficient to indicate the importance of a science which 

 deals with plants, and that the intimate way in which animals and 

 animal products enter into our daily life would sufficiently em- 

 phazise the importance of the basic science on which all studies 

 en animals rest — zoology. It might be retorted that we need 

 not be a botanist in order to grow vegetables, or crops, or timber, 

 cr rubber, or any other plant product, and that one need net 

 be a zoologist to^ keep cows or sheep. It is also true that one 

 need not be an engineer in order to walk over a bridge or to 

 travel by railway or steam boat, but that does not make the en- 

 gineer unnecessary. There is always a tendency on the part of 

 the unreflecting section of the public, when any branch of a 

 science acquires obvious and immediate technical importance, to 

 concentrate attention upon that particular branch, and to' forget 

 the basic science upon which the practical application is based, and 

 from which it arose. A sick horse, if it thinks at all, would 

 consider the stable boy who administers the dose that cures it 

 the only person that coimts. but reflecting animals, in which class 

 a fair proportion of mankind are included, know that the chemist 

 who makes up the dcse is also important, that the veterinary 

 surgeon who pi escribes it is even more essential, and that most 

 important of all are those who give the veterinary surgeon his 

 knowledge, and carry on and add to this knowledge from genera- 

 tion to generation. It is here that all Universities can confidently 

 base their claim for public recognition and support, in so far 

 as they maintain the basic sciences without regard to their imme- 

 diate and economic value, and although this claim is perhaps 

 more easily rendered obvious where scientific departments are con- 

 cerned, the same claim holds good for all lines of University work 

 which are' connected with human thought or human activities, and 

 which form the firm foundations without which no bixilding is 

 secure. Coming more especially to botanical science, the scien- 

 tific feeding and manuring of farm crops is based upon the 



