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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXTX. No. 1017 



matics, with the added advantage that the 

 flavor of the pleasure derived recurs again 

 and again as the fields and woods minister 

 to his life, and spring, summer and au- 

 tumn, yes, and even winter, in turn speak 

 to him who understands their glad greet- 

 ings of the passing years. 



Let no one imagine that it is merely 

 easy recreation for the dilettante in science. 

 It is a man's job. Any one who succeeds 

 in systematic work would measure up well 

 in the philosophical subjects. Manuals 

 and keys can be made only for those who 

 can read as much between the lines as in 

 them ; those in whom the power of discrim- 

 ination becomes strongly developed but 

 who ease up its severity by the due exercise 

 of judgment and reason. 



Systematic botany furnishes to the aver- 

 age layman, who is scientifically inclined, 

 a more continuous incentive for pleasurable 

 and inspiring contact with the world about 

 him than any other subject that claims to 

 be worthy of his attention. It may be that 

 it represents the primitive phase of our 

 development, but does not all development 

 begin with the primitive ? That some never 

 get beyond the primitive stage is neither 

 here nor there. The same would be found 

 true in any other subject whatsoever. I 

 raise the question if it is not largely true 

 that the best botanists we have or have had 

 began their career as systematists ? Were 

 they not led into the subject by this door? 

 Their love for plants, their desire to know 

 them, determined their careers. We may 

 be evolving greater and greater men in the 

 science, but even these must of necessity 

 touch at least the high points in the road 

 by which the race of botanists have at- 

 tained the crowning glory of the present. 

 The recapitulation theory is as universcilly 

 applicable as the theory of evolution itself. 



Let us look a little farther into the ca- 

 reers of those whose names have come do\vn 



from a former generation. To save time 

 we will take a single example, one who was 

 not only a systematist, but the peer of any 

 in his generation in every other line. His 

 name is known to more people in America, 

 even a quarter of a century after his death, 

 than that of any other botanist of any 

 time or place. His bust found its way into 

 the "Hall of Fame" because he did more 

 than any one else to make it possible for 

 people to know plants. He was admired 

 and loved in his day and now because of 

 his "Manual" and the accompanying "Les- 

 sons." Let it not be forgotten that he 

 would still have been a distinguished bot- 

 anist had he given no thought to sj^ste- 

 matic work. His grasp of structural and 

 physiological problems was far in advance 

 of his time, and who knows whether even 

 his philosophy may not prove to have been 

 more profound than some of his critics will 

 now admit? Dr. Gray found his way into 

 the hearts of the people and enriched their 

 lives by opening for them a larger world 

 than would otherwise have been possible 

 to them. 



It is true that in all the botanical fields 

 there are great outstanding characters 

 whom we do not ordinarily think of as 

 systematists. These are, however, men or 

 women who have rendered some signal serv- 

 ice to the race by promoting its physical or 

 economic welfare, but even these did much 

 of systematic work before they were able 

 to share with others the results of their 

 achievements. Again, to take but one ex- 

 ample, we have in Pasteur a name that will 

 live so long as living things are subject to 

 attack from microorganisms. He made the 

 race his debtor, not only by what he him- 

 self achieved in bacteriology, but by open- 

 ing the way into the new field. The work 

 of his disciples in preventing and allevi- 

 ating suffering in man and beast must also 

 in part be accounted unto him for right- 



