FRAGRANT LEAVES V. SWEET-SCENTED FLOWERS. 
143 
physics and physiology must be studied together, since the end 
is greater in importance than are the means.* 
4. Sight .—It is a sad thing to lose one’s sight, and yet the 
blind have many compensations; and it is a well-known fact 
that, other things being equal, the senses of touch and of hearing 
and of smelling, and consequently^ of tasting, are very much 
improved. 
One object I had more especially in view in preparing this 
paper was to advocate the growth of sweet-scented flowers, and 
especially sweet-scented hardy flowers and foliage, in or around 
all of our institutions for the blind. This is no new gospel, 
since the late Miss Frances J. Hope, of Edinburgh, inaugurated 
the giving of sweet-smelling leaves and flowers to the blind of 
her native city long before even ordinary Flower Missions were 
begun and carried out elsewhere. She used to say, “ Give what 
flowers and leaves you like to your sharp-eyed friends, or the 
poor who can see; but it is almost an insult to offer a blind 
pauper a gaudy flower without a perfume.” Miss Hope was one 
of the first to observe and record the fact that blind people 
almost invariably touch or feel the flowers before they sniff at 
them. Miss Hope was a woman of intellect and mettle, and one 
can fancy or imagine her indignation when some candid friend 
suggested that “ a bottle of perfume would go farther, and last 
longer among her blind friends, and so save her from ‘ wasting 
flowers on the blind,’ ” and thus enable her to keep the flowers 
for the seeing sick and poor ! 
5. Hearing or Sound .—On our power of hearing depends 
all enjoyment of music, bird song, and other sweet sounds. 
Even speech itself, that master key of the human race, depends 
to a great extent on our power of hearing, though speech may 
be seen by the deaf just as writing is felt by the blind. Of 
hearing, however, we need say no more, since it has practically 
nothing to do with our present subject. 
Close Interconnection of the Senses. 
But we may just glance at the connection that exists between 
the so-called five senses, our instincts as opposed to our reason. 
* The great Swedish naturalist Carl Linne, indeed, did pay some 
attention to plant odours, which he roughly divided into seven groups, or 
classes, three only of which were pleasant, viz. the aromatic, the fragrant, 
and the ambrosial. Linne also called the night-scented flowers /lores 
tristes, because generally of a dull green or brownish hue. 
