THE JUNE MEADOWS 79 



adhesion to Latin is of the relatively narrow past ; 

 nor is this dead tongue likely ever again to be a 

 subject for such blind idolatry. No doubt in time 

 a becoming compromise will be arrived at by the 

 two camps — a compromise that will allow a rose 

 to be a rose, and not oblige it to be always and 

 only a Rosa. 



" Men of science are pitiless tyrants," says 

 Alphonse Karr in " Les Fleurs Animees." " See 

 what they have done for Botany, that charming 

 and graceful study ! . . . Without pity or mercy, they 

 have brutally seized upon the frail daughters of 

 sky and dew ; they have crushed and mutilated 

 them ; they have thrown them into the crucible 

 of Etymology, and after all these awful tortures, 

 and as if to assure themselves of impunity, they 

 have hidden their victims beneath a heap of 

 barbarous names. Thus, thanks to them, the 

 Hawthorn, that symbol of virginity and hope, 

 sighs under the dreadful name Mespilus oxya- 

 cantka. . . . All that is frightful, is it not ? . . . 

 Unfortunately, it is all very necessary. To admire 

 is not to know, and, in order to know, system 

 and method are indispensable. . . . How could we 

 do Avithout the help of Etymology ? Pardon, 

 then, these men of science, who have done nothing 



