Study of botany. 195 



around us, it must be expected from those who discriminate 

 their kinds and study their properties. Of the benefits of 

 natural science in the improvement of many arts, no one 

 doubts. Our food, our medicine, our luxuries are improved 

 by it. By the inquiries of the curious new acquisitions are 

 made in remote countries, and our resources of various kinds 

 are augmented. We find that gardening, the most elegant, 

 and agriculture, the most useful of all arts, are improved only 

 in those countries in which botany is made subservient to 

 their advancement. And when a knowledge of this science 

 is more generally diffused throughout our own country, we 

 may expect to see it more frequently enriched with fields 

 and adorned with gardens, which while they bestow hononr 

 on their possessors, shall prove a pleasant recreation to the 

 old, and a useful study to the young. Nor should its influ- 

 ence on the moral character be disregarded. The late Pre- 

 sident Dwight was an eminent champion of the virtue which 

 he practised. He often directed the attention of his pupils 

 to Sweden, to point out the influence of natural history on 

 the moral character of man. In that country botany is 

 taught in the schools, and the habitation of her excellent 

 children presents a cheering picture of domestic felicity. 

 Their piety and their patriotism both flow from the same 

 source; for while they examine the productions of their 

 country, they become attached to its soil, and while they 

 contemplate the works of their Maker, they are animated 

 with the glowing spirit of devotion. 



Botany deserves our highest regard as the source of mental 

 improvement. Nothing so powerfully attracts the notice of 

 the young observer, as the gay^ though fleeting beauty of 

 flowers ; yet these interesting objects serve to produce an 

 accuracy of discrimination, which is the foundation of cor- 

 rect taste and sound judgment. To those whose minds and 

 understandings are already formed, this study may be re- 

 commended, independently of all other considerations, as a 

 rich source of innocent pleasure. Some people are ever in- 

 quiring what is the use of any particular plant ? They con- 

 sider a botanist with respect, only as he may be able to teach 

 them some profitable improvement, by which they may 

 quickly grow rich, and be then perhaps no longer of any 

 use to mankind or to themselves. They would permit their 

 children to study botany, only because it might possibly lead 



