364 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX. No. 1268 



sciences that will rise to the occasion. This 

 ■will certainly be our fate unless we make a de- 

 termined effort. Tou realize that at the pres- 

 ent moment the scientific study of plants is 

 more fully recognized as a great public service 

 than ever before in the history of botany. The 

 recent pressure for food and for a wide range 

 of plant materials and products has been met 

 in the main, not by so-called practical men, 

 but by trained botanists. Not only the prac- 

 tical government service, but also many in- 

 dustries are calling for botanists with funda- 

 mental training, realizing as never before that 

 progress is based upon research. 



It is the same great opportunity that came 

 first to scientific medicine, through its appeal 

 to the human interest; and later to chemistry 

 in its relation to various industries. It is the 

 appeal of usefulness, the appeal that always re- 

 sults in greater opportunity. 



A response to this opportunity for public 

 service does not mean less science, but more 

 science; but it ties up our science so closely to 

 the human interest that it will be in large de- 

 mand. We are on the rising tide of the great- 

 est demand for trained botanists we have ever 

 known, and it is our task to see to it that the 

 tide does not ebb and leave the profession 

 stranded. If we respond, the opportunities for 

 research will be greater than ever before, as 

 they always are when a science is recognized as 

 of large service. The present endowment for 

 botanical research in universities and in cer- 

 tain industries are as nothing compared with 

 what they will be presently, provided we equip 

 men and women to take advantage of them. 



It was my privilege during the war to be 

 present at a meeting of so-called " captains of 

 industry," who were being informed of the 

 contributions that the various sciences could 

 make to the public welfare. The general im- 

 pression was voiced by one of the auditors in 

 this statement: 



It is obvious that all of our progress in the past 

 has been based on science, and that all our hope of 

 progress in the future must be based on science. 

 It is high time that we begin to pay our debts and 

 give science greater opportunity. 



My purpose is to indicate certain things 

 we must stress in ourselves and in our stu- 

 dents if we are to rise to the opportunity. 



1. The Synthetic View. — As we aU know, 

 botany has developed many fields of research, 

 and as these fields have multiplied, botanists 

 have become more and more segregated into 

 groups; in fact, in the history of botany we 

 have just been passing through the phase of 

 the analysis of our subject. "When I began, 

 botany in this country was only taxonomy, and 

 aU botanists were interested in the same' thing. 

 Then the splitting of the subject began. 

 Different phases gradually became better and 

 better defined, and in consequence more rigid. 

 Presently tasonomists came to know little of 

 any other phase of botany; then morphologists 

 came to know little of taxonomy and to care 

 less ; then ecologists and physiologists began to 

 segregate from the rest of us and to narrow 

 their interests, and so for each segregate in 

 turn. 



The development of research increased this 

 narrowing process, for it deals with special 

 regions of a general field. For example, in 

 research there came to be as many kinds of 

 morphologists as there are great groups of 

 plants, and so for other fields. This analysis 

 was inevitable and desirable, for it developed 

 technique, the essential equipment for re- 

 search. 



Now, however, the movement is in the other 

 direction. We are passing from the analysis 

 of our subject to its synthesis, and it is this 

 synthesis that is being called for by the new 

 botanical opportunity. The synthetic view 

 recognizes, not the rigidity of separate fields, 

 but the cooperation of all fields. Every phase 

 of botany must be focused opon our im- 

 portant problems, for we recognize now that 

 every important problem is synthetic. Our 

 superficial separate problems that we have 

 been cultivating have introduced us to the fact 

 that nature is a great synthesis, and must be 

 attacked synthetically. In the days ahead, 

 the botanist who remains narrow will be 

 stranded. We must recognize in every field 

 of botany an important factor in the solution 

 of problems. A man is expected to think 



