474 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 352. 



ontogeny has for the plant taxonomist a 

 wealth of information as yet unrevealed re- 

 garding the afiBnities of genera within the 

 family and species within the genus. In 

 these matters of more intimate relationship, 

 the form, position and venation of leaves, 

 the nature of the petioles, stipules, pubes- 

 cence and glandularity, all shown in the 

 seedling, are significant. 



Here, however, as in the other subjects 

 of which I have spoken, the real obstacle 

 to further inference at present is an aston- 

 ishing lack of material and data. It is safe 

 to say that of the one hundred and fifty 

 thousand flowering plants recorded in the 

 recently issued Index Kewensis not one 

 fiftieth part has been carefully traced 

 through the earlier stages of development. 

 Enough is known, however, to show that 

 species even of the same genus often pos- 

 sess striking differences, and in other cases 

 remarkable similarities, in the seedling 

 stages, that these particular differences and 

 similarities often become lost or obscured 

 as the plants advance to maturity, and the 

 conclusion is unavoidable that these juve- 

 nile characteristics must, at least in many 

 cases, show ancestral traits, and, if properly 

 studied, yield even better clues to real af- 

 finities than any which we now possess. 



By way of summary, it may be said that 

 systematic botany is very far from being a 

 completed subject, that from our present 

 standpoint we can see in various directions 

 long vistas of further possibilities for fas- 

 cinating exploration and profitable dis- 

 covery, that among the subjects which seem 

 to invite immediate attention the most im- 

 portant are : (1) The determination of the 

 modes and degrees of variation, an investi- 

 gation which alone can yield data for a more 

 critical discrimination of plant categories ; 

 (2) far more complete study of plant ranges, 

 which can scarcely fail to throw much new 

 light upon the forces controlling distribu- 

 tion ; and (3) a further examination of plant 



ontogeny as the most hopeful source of in- 

 formation regarding the more intimate affin- 

 ities and proper arrangement of plants. 



B. L. EOBINSON. 

 HAUVAED IlNIVEESITy. 



THE CHANGE OF FRONT IN EDUCATION * 

 Dr. Samuel Johnson considered educa- 

 tion as needful to the * embellishments of 

 life.' In his day very few were educated 

 at all, and those few for society or public 

 service. The toiling masses had no educa- 

 tion, were supposed to need no education, 

 and while discussing details educators and 

 scholars took no thought of what we call 

 the common people. 



Said Johnson (in his ' Life of Milton '): 

 " The truth is, that a knowledge of ex- 

 ternal nature, and the sciences which that 

 knowledge requires or includes, are not the 

 great or the frequent business of the human 

 mind. Whether we provide for action or 

 conversation, whether we wish to be useful 

 or pleasing, the first requisite is the relig- 

 ious and moral knowledge of right and 

 wrong; the next is an acquaintance with 

 the history of mankind, and with those ex- 

 amples which may be said to embody truth, 

 and prove by events the reasonableness of 

 opinions. Prudence and justice are virtues 

 and excellences of all times and of all 

 places. We are perpetually moralists, but 

 we are geometricians only by chance. Our 

 intercourse with intellectual nature is nec- 

 essary ; our speculations upon matter are 

 voluntary and at leisure. Physiological 

 learning [by which he means a knowledge 

 of the laws and phenomena of the external 

 world] is of such rare emergency, that one 

 may know another half his life without be- 

 ing able to estimate his skill in hydrostatics 

 or astronomy ; but his moral and pruden- 

 tial character immediately appears. 



* Address of the Vice-President and Chairman of 

 Section I, Social Science and Statistics, of the Amer- 

 ican Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 Denver meeting, August, 1901. 



