THE STUDY OF PLANTS 23 



Most of the facts about plants which you learn, unless 

 you continue the study, you will presently forget. But 

 if you learn this method once, and appreciate its impor- 

 tance, and practice it, you never will forget it. You will 

 use it all your life. It will serve you best when you come 

 to settle the most important questions of your life, it will 

 lead you to the right answers in the great questions of 

 behavior, and you will come to esteem it among your most 

 precious possessions. 



Knowledge changes as new facts are found, but this 

 method does not change. It is one way to knowledge. 

 Learning is knowledge of facts, but unless we know how to 

 use the facts all our learning is of no more use than a dusty 

 encyclopedia which is never taken off the shelf. Wisdom 

 tells us how to recognize facts, how to understand them, 

 and how to act in accord with them. Indeed wisdom is 

 just this scientific method by another name. Though 

 named with the name of science, this method applies to 

 far more than just the things you think about when you 

 say science. It applies to all the affairs of men. It is 

 not a thing which concerns just astronomers and botanists 

 and the like. It is a thing which concerns every man, and 

 which is of as much importance to every man as it is to 

 the scientist. It is called the scientific method only be- 

 cause it is through the study of science that man has de- 

 veloped it. It was by the study of stars and of plants, 

 by working out the laws of life and of light, by seeking 

 new knowledge in every field of nature by such means 

 the scientific method came to be what it is. It is more 

 valuable to man than all his discoveries and achievements, 

 for it is the method by which all the best of these dis- 

 coveries and achievements were accomplished. 



