Makch 28, 1919] 



SCIENCE 



297 



more than this, even, out of the study and 

 practise of horticulture. The dignity and 

 worth of the human spirit is a greater good, 

 to which all else should be made to minister. 



You are graduates of a technical school. 

 There are some who go to a technical school 

 with no other idea than to secure training 

 for a profession; there are indeed some 

 who contend that technical schools are nec- 

 essarily limited in their work to prepara- 

 tion for a vocation, and this is the danger. 

 At about the middle of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury the controversy was rife in England 

 as to whether professional studies had any 

 place in a university. Cardinal Newman 

 argued, with all the power of his eloquence, 

 that it is the purpose of a university to con- 

 fer, not a technical, but a liberal education ; 

 and he defined a liberal education as con- 

 sisting in the culture of the intellect for its 

 own sake, without reference to utilitarian 

 ends. 



One can hardly overestimate the value of 

 a liberal education, thus defined, for all, no 

 matter what their calling in life. Every 

 one, whether horticulturist or doctor, or 

 lawyer or engineer — whatever his vocation 

 — must take his place in a community of in- 

 dividuals of varying degrees of culture, of 

 other interests than his own, of broad as 

 well as of narrow outlook, and he can not 

 do it successfully by being merely a horti- 

 culturist, or a lawyer. The position he can 

 take, the influence for good he can yield, 

 will depend upon his own expansion of 

 mind, the width of his own sympathies, the 

 breadth of his own culture. 



A recent editorial in a New York daily 

 paper called attention to the fact that the 

 French educational mission of seven sa- 

 vants, now in this country, contained but 

 one scientist, and expressed great satisfac- 

 tion at this fact, as indicating the contrast 

 between French and German culture, of the 

 latter of which we have had enough — ad 



nauseam. But the repugnant and un.savory 

 character of German culture is not to be 

 attributed to the extensive development of 

 scientific studies in Germany, but to the 

 fact that her entire educational system, in 

 the schools and out, has been permeated 

 with an antiquated, unchristian, inhuman, 

 abhorrent system of ethics and morality. 

 She was rotten at the heart. 



I wish to emphasize the point that liberal 

 education is not necessarily a matter of con- 

 tent — of non-utilitarian subjects— but of 

 spirit and of methods. The studies of 

 Greek, Latin and Hebrew were at first in- 

 troduced into university instruction for 

 utilitarian purposes, but soon became the 

 foundation stones of a liberal education. 

 The studies of medicine, law, theology, engi- 

 neering, botany, horticulture, may be pur- 

 sued in such a way as to produce merely 

 doctors, lawyers, divines, engineers, botan- 

 ists, horticulturists; or they may be pur- 

 sued with a spirit and method that will pro- 

 duce, as well, men and women of broad cul- 

 ture — of liberal education, more competent 

 in their professions, more creditable and 

 satisfactory to themselves, more valuable in 

 their communities. Make your horticul- 

 tural study, then, not only a means of 

 preparation for a vocation, but also a basis 

 and means of education — of the enlarge- 

 ment of your minds, the enrichment of your 

 lives, the expansion and perfection of your 

 characters. 



You are entering upon a noble calling. 

 The outstanding names in horticulture — 

 Vihnorin (father and son) and Lemoine in 

 France, Thomas Andrew Knight, Veitch 

 and Sutton in England, Robert Fortune in 

 Scotland, Van Tubergen and de Vries in 

 Holland, Correvon in Switzerland, Hender- 

 son, Meehan, Bailey, and others in Amer- 

 ica, would do honor to any profession. 

 You have a reputation to maintain, and an 

 obligation to maintain it. 



