June 26, 1914] 



SCIENCE 



923 



eousness. Such men, however, were enter- 

 ing new fields and had to create descrip- 

 tions and systems of classification as a 

 foundation for their work and as a medium 

 of communication with their fellows. Thus 

 we have come back to the original state- 

 ment, systematic botany is primarily the 

 handmaid to all the other subdivisions of 

 the subject. 



Having said this much in commendation 

 of taxonomy in general, kindly permit now 

 a brief consideration of its trend and influ- 

 ence. If taxonomy and taxonomists are 

 gaining in prestige and power, if the other 

 departments of botany are each year being 

 better served, if the average layman in the 

 field finds it easier to know the plants 

 themselves we may congratulate ourselves 

 and say that all is well. If the reverse is 

 true, something is radically wrong. A can- 

 cer is eating its way into a vital part of 

 the body of our science. 



Taxonomists were never so numerous 

 nor more active than now. But all activity 

 is not necessarily progress. Motion up and 

 down may be spectacular and nothing more. 

 Never were there so many devoting them- 

 selves to this subject professionally as at 

 present. Literature is piling up volume 

 upon volume. Before we can determine 

 whether this is progress or recession we shall 

 have to try to find the purpose of it all. 

 The description and classification of plants 

 is not in itself an end. It is a means to 

 an end and that end not for the specialist 

 himself, but rather for his colleagues in 

 other lines and for the great army of intel- 

 ligent men and women who love plants for 

 their own sakes. 



The reasons why people may wish to 

 know plants are many, most of them en- 

 tirely worthy. No reason is more legiti- 

 mate than the mere desire to know that is 

 almost universal until our method of 

 education, or lack of method, kills the de- 



sire. Desire that is never satisfied dies 

 afterwhile. The child asks, "What is 

 it?" but when it has received the answer, 

 ' ' I don 't know ; stop bothering me, ' ' seventy 

 times seven its interest either wholly dies 

 or it seeks outlet in other channels. The 

 furore of enthusiasm about nature study 

 I fear has largely spent itself. The best 

 statement of the purpose of nature study 

 that came to me was "It aims to keep alive 

 the child's tentacles of inquiry." Are we 

 not largely failing in the attainment of 

 this meritorious aim? If so, why? As I 

 know our schools it is primarily because of 

 the lamentable ignorance of all nature 

 subjects by the teachers. Not only by 

 teachers in general, but by those profess- 

 ing to teach botany in our high schools. A 

 large majority of them wouldn't know an 

 elm from a holly or an evening primrose 

 from a lily. I have seen them by the score 

 in my state and most of them came from 

 outside schools of high standing where they 

 had been trained in the cytology of plants 

 that they never saw and in the ecology of 

 plants that were left behind in the dreams 

 and environment of yesterday. Tou may 

 wonder how this relates itself to my sub- 

 ject. But listen! There is no reason for 

 the existence of the professional systematist 

 (apart from the growth and pleasure it 

 yields him personally) unless his efforts 

 produce results that make it more easily 

 possible for others to know the plants in 

 which they become interested. If he fails 

 in this one thing he fails in all. May we 

 not judge by the indiiSerence of the multi- 

 tude to our work; by the hopelessness of 

 the amateur who tries to acquaint himself 

 with the plants of his district; by the dis- 

 trust of their results by even professed 

 systematists, and by the none too well con- 

 cealed cynicism of our colleagues in other 

 lines, that we are failing in this? There 

 seems to be nearly universal agi'eement 



