1895.] ESSAYS. 115 



forces it has taken advantage of, — to maintain its struggle for life in 

 exactly the place we now find it. Are these lessons of no value? 

 We clear off this garden as if they were not. And it is only when 

 man plants in its place the things he desires to grow, and sees that his 

 peaches turn yellow, his wheat turns black, his apple trees rust and 

 so on ; only when the things of his planting are swept from the face 

 of the earth, — does man realize that it is well worth his while to study 

 the ways and means that nature has found necessary for the main- 

 tenance of her various forms. The very first thing we must realize 

 in this great study is that the problems are far too vast and compli- 

 cated for a narrow and selfish utilitarian spirit to grapple. The 

 commercial spirit may see that to know something about wheat- rust 

 may be worth $200,000,000 a year to this country, or to know some- 

 thing about diphtheria or consumption may save thousands of valuable 

 lives. What of that? it replies. We can't find out these things and we 

 know there is money in this thing or that which we tan do, and that is 

 the end of it. To deal with these problems, the broadest view that 

 the highest university education can give is clearly necessary to give a 

 sound basis for thinking out and reasoning out these problems. 

 They are difficult. They can not be solved at will or at dictation, in 

 one week or in one year. There must be a broad knowledge, and 

 beiiiud this a spirit entirely above the commercial ; a spirit that knows 

 no discouragement, in whose dictionary there are no ''can'ts"; the 

 spirit of the mountain climber who overcomes all difficulties, and the 

 harder the climb the better he likes it. When ^we have a public edu- 

 cation that produces such spirits, we may hope to have the question 

 of peach yellows and consumption and the like cleared up once for 

 all, instead of frantically jumping up and down in the same place 

 year after year. 



I do not mean that it would convert AYorcester into an agricultural 

 or horticultural experiment station. There is no danger of that. I 

 would strive to so present the great facts of botany and other 

 natural sciences in such wise that everybody would learn and appre- 

 ciate the enormous value attending the solution of these problems and 

 gain a fair estimation of their difficulty ; and now and then some one 

 might step forward with the means to forward the good work or with 

 the knowledge, ability and will to solve some particular problem. As 

 one means of developing such a state of, mind, a proper educational 

 garden must prove most efficient. 



No such primitive garden as I have described exists in this vicinity 

 at least. The land has been cut over and burned over and ploughed 



