January 3, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



purpose. Here and there a dominant man 

 has wrought out a scheme of the science 

 for himself, but how familiar is the fact to 

 all of us that there is yet no agreement 

 even upon so small a question as to the 

 content of the first year of college botany, 

 or the mode of its presentation. There is 

 moreover a vagueness as to the boundaries 

 of the science, some botanical teachers 

 wandering far across the border into the 

 domain of some contiguous science, or still 

 more commonly into the more or less prac- 

 tical applications of some portions of bot- 

 any. This latter indiscretion is especially 

 noticeable in the textbooks prepared for 

 the secondary schools, in some instances by 

 botanists of good standing. If this were 

 done by the agriculturists, the agronomists, 

 the horticulturists, the foresters and others 

 in similar lines of work with plants, it 

 would not be surprising, but when this is 

 done by botanists it is significant of the 

 unorganized condition of the science. 

 With a fuller knowledge of the science 

 there must come a clearer vision of what 

 it is, and what it is not, and we shall no 

 longer find textbooks of botany made to 

 include so much that is not botany, while 

 leaving out so much that is botany. 



This difference of opinion as to what 

 constitutes botany results in the absence of 

 united effort. In its simplest aspect it 

 takes the familiar form of uncertainty as 

 to the content and value of the work done 

 by the student elsewhere when he trans- 

 fers himself from one college to another. 

 As a matter of fact there is yet no agree- 

 ment as to what is a standard first-year's 

 course in college botany. What teacher 

 has not been sorely puzzled to know to 

 what courses to admit men who came from 

 another college with credits in botany ! It 

 is quite unscientific to try to account for 

 this condition by an excusatory reference 

 to the individual peculiarities and the per- 



sonal differences of the teachers. In sci- 

 ence we consider the personal equation as 

 something to be determined and elimi- 

 nated, and not to be excused and tolerated. 

 Every difference in the treatment of, say 

 the first-year course, is just so far an indi- 

 cation of a more or less unscientific atti- 

 tude by one or all of the teachers con- 

 cerned. We work in this haphazard, dis- 

 connected way either because we do not 

 know any better, or knowing better we 

 think it not worth while. Either horn of 

 this dilemma is equally unworthy of our 

 acceptance. Ignorance is no valid excuse 

 for the scientific man, and in science every- 

 thing is worth while. It is to our shame 

 as botanists that we acknowledge our in- 

 ability hitherto to frame a standard first- 

 year course in college botany. When the 

 science is definitely formulated in the 

 minds of botanists the present disagree- 

 ment will no longer exist. Surely we now 

 "see as through a glass darkly." 



The Applications of Botany. — Again, it 

 may be remarked that we are to-day 

 placing great emphasis upon the applica- 

 tions of botany to some of the great human 

 activities, especially to agriculture. Wit-' 

 ness the agricultural experiment stations 

 with their botanists of all kinds, from those 

 who study weeds and poisonous plants, to 

 the physiologists, pathologists, ecologists 

 and plant breeders. And as we look over 

 the work they do we are filled with admira- 

 tion and pride that they have individually 

 done so well. But it is not the cumulative 

 work of an army of science, it is rather the 

 disconnected, unrelated work of so many 

 individuals. They are doing scientific 

 work in an unscientific way. There is as 

 yet no movement of a united army of 

 science; it has been rather a sort of guer- 

 rilla warfare against the common enemy. 

 We lack organization, and like unorganized 

 soldiers we make little headway in spite of 



