BOTANIC GARDENS COULTER. 465 



from contact. We must distinguish between knowledge and informa- 

 tion. Knowledge is first-hand, obtained from actual contact with 

 the material. Information is secondhand, hearsay, coming from no 

 actual experience. Beading about nature, therefore, brings informa- 

 tion ; contact with nature brings knowledge. To serve a community 

 by bringing its children into contact with nature is a great educa- 

 tional service. 



Perhaps the most significant contact with nature is the handling 

 of plants. We are seeking now for an army of people with some ex- 

 perience in handling plants; for more people who will cultivate 

 plants wherever space permits. You have been made to realize, in 

 these days of testing our resources, that the most important material 

 problem we are facing as a nation is the problem of food production 

 and conservation. Food production has lagged far behind popula- 

 tion, and this increasing gap must be closed up. Our science of trans- 

 portation has far outstripped our science of food production, so that 

 we have come to depend not only upon a diminishing food supply 

 but also upon transporting that supply across a continent. To learn 

 to grow plants and to grow them everywhere, especially near our 

 great centers of population, is a crying need. 



The development of home gardens, therefore, is not merely a 

 service for social betterment that all recognize, but it is becoming 

 more and more a public necessity. Any institution that gives you and 

 your children this training is not merely an educational institution 

 but also a public benefactor. A botanic garden doing such work is 

 like a power house, radiating energy throughout the community. 

 Such training is an equipment which not only enriches life but it is 

 also an equipment for service. In providing such an opportunity 

 a city can do nothing better for its young people and its homes and, 

 through them, for itself. 



These two contributions, social and educational, seem very obvious, 

 but the third contribution needs fuller explanation. 



3. The third is the scientific contribution. This I regard as your 

 great opportunity, and I wish to help you realize it. We are a very 

 practical people, and unless we can see immediate returns from an 

 investment, we decline to undertake it. Very few people appreciate 

 what it has taken to make things practical. We speak of fundamental 

 science and practical science; sometimes we call these two phases 

 pure science and applied science. The general impression is that 

 pure science holds no relation to public welfare, and that applied 

 science serves our needs. You should know that all applied science 

 depends upon pure science; that there would be nothing to apply 

 unless pure science had discovered it. If we had only applied science, 

 it would soon become sterile. It is pure or fundamental science that 

 keeps applied science alive, that makes progress possible. For ex- 



