194 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [SEPTEMBER 
the pedantry of the Middle Ages with their ponderous tomes, 
botany, almost within our own memory, stands as the scientific 
diversion or pastime of men whose serious business in life was of 
avery different nature. Such training as the earlier botanists 
had was obtained as being primarily useful in other pursuits than 
pure research, though there is abundant evidence that the master 
often enjoined upon the pupil the possibilities of botanical 
study, and no doubt he stretched the limits of botanical instruc 
tion deemed necessary, just as is done today in technical schools, 
in the hope that the surplus might be so used as to increase the 
general store of knowledge ; but, at best, training was limited, 
and research was recreation and relaxation. 
But our predecessors, even the generation immediately before 
us, lived under conditions which made it possible for a mam to 
hold high place in the business or professional world, to accl- 
mulate wealth in commerce, and at the same time to devote much 
time to the study of nature. Today the man who is not entirely 
a business man is better out of business, and, with a few exe?” 
tions, the man who is not entirely a student is little better than 4 
dilettante in science. Concentration is the order of the day, 
specialization is the lot of most men. But specialization, the 
keynote of progressive evolution, is always intimately assou®™ 
with a division of labor. Fortunately, the men who enter ® zh 
win in the great game of commerce and manufacture sea oat 
more or less clear way that nearly every great manufacturing o 
commercial advance has grown out of a succession of 0 ey 
discoveries made by the devotee to pure science, often | 
ered by him, indeed, only as so many more words deciphe je 
the great and mysterious unread book of nature, but oo 
later adapted and applied for the benefit of all men by pe 
mind of a master in the art of money-making. To ee 
successful in business, we owe it that today not only ee = 
men able to devote their entire time to scientific researel 4 
propagation of knowledge, but that their work is do 
favorable conditions, and with a wealth of aids and adjuncts” 
would hardly have been thought of a generation ago. . 
