PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
BOTANY IN ITS RELATION TO GOOD CITIZENSHIP. 
BY B. SHIMEK. 
There are devotees of science who are impatient at every 
mention of any connection between their favorite branch 
and the every day affairs of men. There are those to whom 
purely scientific attainment is so sacred that any attempt 
to profane it with suggestion of profit or practical return 
is sacrilege. While we must admire the unselfish devotion 
which has prompted men to give their lives to scientific 
effort without hope or thought of material reward, we 
must also recognize the fact that the days of exclusiveness 
are past — that learning is no longer confined to the clois- 
ter of the monk or the den of the savant — and that the 
greater availability of means and methods of investigation, 
together with the prospect of practical application of 
scientific principles, have produced a thirst for knowledge 
which exists far beyond the walls of the laboratory. Men 
now seek results from every effort, and on all sides we find 
scientific principles applied to the profit and the material 
advantage of man. He employs them to combat disea.se; 
to add to his personal comfort and convenience; to pre- 
serve or increase the fruits of his labor; and for direct per- 
sonal profit in the countless industrial pursuits in which 
these principles are applied. 
Scientific truth is not so sacred that it can not serve for 
the improvement, the uplifting, the comfort and security 
of the human race. Upon its foundations are erected the 
temples of modern civilization; the search for it has re- 
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