May 9, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



749 



use of unfamiliar terms. If I may without 

 offense take a concrete instance, I would sug- 

 gest that the author of the interesting note, 

 'Ecological Problems connected with Alpine 

 Vegetation' (p. 459), might find it to the ad- 

 vantage of his subject, his audience and him- 

 self if he would rewrite his. paper without 

 ' *^ using the words ecology (or (ecology), phyto- 

 geography, morphology, floristic, edaphic, and 

 xerophyte, or their derivatives. 



F. A. Bather. 



BOTANICAL XOHENCLATURE. 



To XHE Editor of Science : It occurs to me 

 ^6 after reading Dr. Cook's truly melancholy ac- 

 count of the condition of nomenclature in 

 botany, to point out that the vast majority of 

 the tribulations from which that nomencla- 

 ture is suffering would be nonexistent if bot- 

 anists had simply been willing to stand by the 

 rules accepted by practically all zoologists. 

 All the terrible examples he cites from Her- 

 nandez drop out of sight at once on the ap- 

 plication of the rule that vernacular names 

 are not to be accepted. Ninety-nine hun- 

 dredths of the rest disappear with the iixation 

 of 1758 ('Systema Nature,' Ed. X.) as the 

 date beyond which resurrectionists shall not 

 disturb the tombs. 



It is true that all bodies of men contain a 

 certain proportion of freaks and that some 

 may be cited among zoologists, and a certain 

 number of persons who have not made a study 

 of nomenclature as an art, persist in injecting 

 sentimental considerations into their argu- 

 ment and practice. 



But these as a rule have not succeeded, in 

 this country, in disturbing systematic work 

 or diverting attention from the goal of 

 stability which most zoologists aim at. 



With an international committee to decide 

 the fate of the residue of preposterous names 

 which no rules can eliminate, I think a com- 

 paratively few years would put zoological 

 nomenclature on a solid and permanent basis. 

 And if botanists would 'hark back' to De 

 Candolle and rigorously apply his rules, they 

 also might see the dawn of a better day. 



Wm. H. Dall. 



Smithsonian Institution, 

 April 26, 1902. 



THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, NOT OF AN OLIGARCHY. 



Professor William T. Sedgwick, of Boston, 

 in an address published in Science^ January 

 10, 1902, 'confesses with sorrow' the lack of 

 success of efforts to prevent the study of 

 'temperance physiology' as now required in 

 the public schools of this country. 



Pie first offers in defense of his opposition 

 the fact that Horace Mann, in 1842, did not 

 include temperance physiology in his essay 

 on 'The Study of Physiology in the Schools,' 

 but he omits to add the sig-nificant accom- 

 panying fact of history, namely, that the rec- 

 ommendations of Horace Mann's essay that 

 'physiology should be taught in the schools,' 

 aroused in Massachusetts such a storm of 

 bitter opposition from the doctors and men 

 of official science, that the existence of the 

 Massachusetts State Board of Education and 

 its secretary, Horace Mann, were saved by 

 only a hair's breadth from being entirely 

 legislated out of office. But time has vindi- 

 cated Horace Mann's recommendations, while 

 his opponents are forgotten. 



Sixty years have passed and Massachusetts, 

 as well as every state in the United States 

 and the iSTational Congress, has made physiol- 

 ogy and hygiene, which latter includes the 

 nature and effects of alcoholic drinks and 

 other narcotics, a mandatory public school 

 study. Professor Sedgwick is now objecting, 

 not to this study, he says, but to the legal speci- 

 fications which have made it a success. First 

 he objects to its being taught 'to all pupils.' 

 He does not tell when or by what class of 

 pupils he would have it omitted. In our 

 country 'all pupils' of to-day are destined to 

 be the sovereign people of to-morrow. Hence, 

 looked at from the standpoint of the state, it 

 can not afford that one single pupil should 

 not receive the utmost instruction on this 

 subject needed to fit that pupil for a future 

 sovereignty of intelligent sobriety. 



From the standpoint of the individual, we 

 ask. From whose child shall this educational 

 method for the prevention of intemperance be 

 withheld ? Shall it be from the children of the 

 poor, the rich, the foreign-born or the home- 

 born? We are answered by the command of 

 the greatest of all teachers that the supreme 



