68 BOTANICAL GAZETTE, [ March, 
EDITORIAL. 
ONE THING is especially true of American botany—it is vigorous and 
progressive. The evidences of accelerating growth may reasonably sup- 
port hopes of a future development as profound, even if not as massive, 
as Germany now possesses. We are of a mind with our German corre 
spondent (whose views on this and other points carry all the more 
weight by being taken from a letter not written for publication), that 
time will bring us college faculties in botany, with all implied improve- 
ments and accompaniments, where we now have isolated teachers. Itis, 
indeed, quite possible to establish a few laboratories and lecture rooms 
in emulation of the best the world knows, if men of erudition and in- 
domitable energy are willing to devote themselves to the work, and can 
secure the backing of sufficiently large and wealthy institutions, yet to 
see the science acknowledged as an essential part of a general education, 
which is now true in a limited sense only, there must exist the convict 
tion in the public mind that it is of greater importance than other studies 
which it displaces. Public attention is much more directed toward the 
useful at the present time than what is simply interesting. It will be 
good policy, therefore, for botanists to pay regard to those subjects which 
affect the thought and welfare of the people. In passing this way the 
dangerous ground of superficiality must be sedulously avoided, for our 
plea is not for popularity at the expense of science, but for the advance- 
ment of science by the aid of the good will of the people. Let the botany, 
presented by botanists, take hold of problems of human welfare and phil- 
osophy in a masterly way, and the public will not fail to show apprecia 
tion by lending its support to the advancement of the science as a whole, 
OPEN LETTERS. 
I am half inclined to take exceptions to: itorial in the GAZETTE 
for November, 1886, a propos o! Se to ea social int 
to me that you rather ignored another group of workers, for want of a 
en to be done to satisfy the most enthusi- 
asts - whom you speak, wh ost ardent of those same young 
onn. 
UGLAS H, CAMPBELL, 
ere is an immense amount of structural 
