March 9, 1917] 



SCIENCE 



227 



marked man, and in all probability he is 

 called a "wizard." The fact is that the 

 great body of investigators, who are doing 

 the substantial work that makes for scien- 

 tific and practical progress, are unknown 

 to the public. My thesis is that what may 

 be called the pure science of botany should 

 be recognized as underlying all the effec- 

 tive practical handling of plants. 



For fear of being misunderstood, I wish 

 to define briefly what I regard as the most 

 Important ideal of botany, as of all the sci- 

 ences. It is to extend the boundaries of 

 knowledge, the goal being to understand 

 nature. This ideal includes no thought of 

 making nature a servant to minister to our 

 needs. To know nature simply because it 

 is wonderful ajid worth knowing is what it 

 means. Such investigation is like the ex- 

 ploration of an unknown continent. Every 

 advance into the new territory impresses 

 us with the fact that it is far more exten- 

 sive than we had dreamed. Every trail is 

 worth following because it means addi- 

 tional knowledge. Some trails may lead 

 to rich farm lands and gold mines, but in 

 exploration these are only incidents. To 

 understand the new country, all trails must 

 be followed and mapped. 



What may be called practical botany is 

 beginning to realize the importance of ex- 

 ploration. This is indicated perhaps most 

 significantly by the change of attitude in 

 the scientific work of the government. The 

 Bureau of Plant Industry, for example, 

 during the last few years has been adding 

 notably to its staff of scientific explorers. 

 The reason for this has been a realization 

 of the fact that practical application is 

 sterile unless there is a continuous dis- 

 covery of something to apply. 



That scientific exploration is entering 

 upon an advanced stage of its development 

 is shown by the fact that it is proceeding 

 in its method from analysis to synthesis. 



Until recently progress in botany was 

 marked by an increasing segregation of 

 subjects, so that botanists were distributed 

 into numerous pigeon holes and labeled. A 

 man in one pigeon hole knew little of the 

 work of his colleagues, and eared less. 

 This segregation was immensely useful in 

 the development of the technique of bot- 

 any; but now we realize the fact that na- 

 ture is not pigeon-holed, but is a great 

 synthesis ; and we know that to understand 

 plants, which is to synthesize our results, 

 all of our so-called sciences must focus 

 upon the problems. We have discovered 

 that to know plants and their relations to 

 the synthesis we call nature, we must know 

 not only their structure and habits, but also 

 the chemistry of the materials that affect 

 their living, the physics of the variable 

 conditions that they must face, the geolog- 

 ical record of their changes; in short, 

 botany has become the focusing of all the 

 sciences upon the problems of plants. 



In one sense scientific exploration is a 

 luxury, just as music or art or literature, 

 and must be recognized as a response to a 

 high human impulse, the impulse to know; 

 but we must correct the impression that 

 botanical exploration is merely a luxury. 

 We have been minimizing our opportu- 

 nities for botanical research by allowing 

 the impression to continue that our results 

 hold no relation to human welfare. 



This impression has been developed 

 chiefiy by the fact that two aspects of sci- 

 ence are generally recognized, known as 

 "pure" and "applied." There is little 

 general appreciation of the vital connec- 

 tion between these two phases of botany. 

 Not only does the distinction exist in the 

 public mind, but it is reinforced also by 

 published statements from colleges and 

 universities. The distinction seems to be 

 that pure science is of no material service 

 to mankind; and that applied science 



