A BACKWARD GLANCE 283 



Shall we content ourselves with watering our 

 plants when they are dry and enriching the soil 

 when it is worn out? Shall we be satisfied merely 

 to be good gardeners? 



Or shall we study the living forces within the 

 plants themselves and let them teach us how to 

 work real transformations? 



It is conceivable that a manufacturer of 

 machinery might become successful, or even rise 

 to be the foremost manufacturer in his line, with- 

 out giving a moment of consideration to the 

 atom structure of the iron which he works — with 

 never a thought of the forces which nature has 

 employed in creating the substance we call iron 

 ore. 



It is conceivable that one might become a good 

 cook — a master chef, even — without the slightest 

 reference to, or knowledge of, the structural for- 

 mation of animal and vegetable cells. 



Or that one might succeed as a teacher of the 

 young — might become, even, a nation-wide au- 

 thority on molding the plastic mind of youth — 

 without ever being assailed by the thought that 

 the forbears of the nimble-minded children in his 

 care, ages and ages ago, may have been swinging 

 from tree to tree by their tails. 



And so, in most occupations, it has been con- 

 trived for us that we deal only with present-day 



