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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1174 



was no botanical laboratory of any sort in 

 the United States. The museum and lab- 

 oratory building of our sister institution, 

 the New York Botanical Garden, completed 

 in April, 1901, was the first building of any 

 considerable magnitude in this country con- 

 structed for the sole purpose of botanical 

 instruction and research. 



What a change, and what an appropri- 

 ate and heartening change, in the past 

 twenty-five or thirty years, for now all of 

 our better colleges and universities are 

 planning adequate housing for their botan- 

 ical work, and in many institutions this 

 ideal has already been realized. 



As many of you have already seen, the 

 architects have made this a building of 

 great beauty. A well-known magazine re- 

 cently published a view of the Woolworth 

 building, in New York, entitling the picture 

 "a cathedral of commerce." And why 

 should not commerce, and science which 

 promotes commerce, have their beautiful 

 buildings ? Nothing has done more to give 

 us a deep insight into divine mysteries, to 

 correct false notions of deity, to produce a 

 sane and wholesome attitude of mind 

 toward the universe and man's relation 

 thereto than the study of science, especially 

 during the past fiLOty years. I like to think 

 that there is something truly significant in 

 the fact that the architectural motive of 

 this laboratory building was drawn from 

 churches such as are not uncommon in 

 northern Italy. 



But what is this building for, and what 

 is a botanic garden? A botanic garden is 

 an institution for the advancement and dif- 

 fusion of a knowledge and love of plants; 

 the particular purpose of the Brooklyn Bo- 

 tanic Garden is the advancement of botany 

 and the service of the city. 



But how, you ask, can a botanic garden 

 serve the city ? Without hesitation I reply, 

 primarily by the advancement of botany, 

 secondarily in many related ways. How 



the means indicated are adequate to achieve 

 the result is still not clear to those who are 

 inclined to think of botany, not as a man's 

 woi'k, as a science fundamental to the oldest 

 and most essential of all human occupa- 

 tions, namely agriculture, but merely as a 

 pleasant pastime for young ladies in a 

 "finishing school," or as a rather heroic 

 method of learning to recognize a few na- 

 tive wild flowers and to pronounce their 

 Latin names. My time is too short and the 

 hour is too late for me to go into details, 

 but I may briefly illustrate by citing a line 

 of work now in progress here, namely, a 

 survey of the diseases of the trees and 

 shrubs of Prospect Park and the Botanic 

 Garden. During the past ten years the 

 boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens have lost 

 chestnut trees to the value of several hun- 

 dred thousand dollars through the ravages 

 of a tree disease which no one knows how to 

 combat. Would it not have been worth 

 much more than the annual cost of mainte- 

 nance of both botanic gardens of the city to 

 have known how to cheek the chestnut 

 blight, and how to cope with equally de- 

 structive diseases now threatening several 

 other kinds of trees ? 



But of far greater importance than a 

 knowledge of how to grow trees in a city, 

 or how to combat the diseases of crop 

 plants, is the instilling in the general body 

 of our citizens of correct habits of thought 

 and a correct attitude of mind in the face 

 of such problems. To observe accurately, 

 to record faithfully, to reason logically, to 

 keep an open mind, to welcome truth re- 

 gardless of consequences, quickly to recog- 

 nize error, to make no compromise with 

 charlatanism — this is the scientific habit of 

 thought and work. It is the only method 

 by which knowledge is advanced ; it charac- 

 terizes all research in this and similar in- 

 stitutions; it is the indispensable spirit of 

 all scientific instruction, both elementary 



