Cbe IRatfonal IRurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol. XXX. HATBORO, PENNA ., OCTOBER 1922 N^TiO 
Training Children How to Know and Use Plants 
An Address Delivered by James N. Rule, Director of Science, State Department of Public Instruction, Com¬ 
monwealth of Pennsylvania, Before Pennsylvania Nurserymen s Association, Lancaster, Pa., August 10,1922. 
Probably never before in the history of the world have 
so many political remedies been proposed for the ills of 
mankind—remedies which run the entire gamut of com¬ 
plete control of every man’s property and life to an an¬ 
archic state which relaxes every element of control ex¬ 
cept one’s own passing wish. These political agitators 
are in our streets daily, hawking their wares and loudly 
claiming each for his own particular brand of govern¬ 
ment or of legislation that it is the one thing needful to 
make our nation once more a land verily flowing with 
milk and honey. The final issue of these agitations is 
still in doubt, and will continue to be in doubt until our 
electorate as a whole is literate and liberty-loving and 
law-abiding. 
If any particular trend, however, is discernible, it 
seems to be present in the direction of less rather than 
more government, but, after all, I presume to say that 
the question is not primarily whether we need more or 
whether we need less government. Thoughtful men and 
women, regardless of party affiliations, are agreed that 
what our nation, our states, our cities and towns need 
politically is not a little more or a little less government, 
but better government. And these same thoughtful men 
and women are agreed that better government cannot be 
secured merely by electing better men and women to 
office. The level of governmental efficiency cannot rise 
appreciably above the general level of the capacity of the 
electorate to appreciate and support the fundamental fac¬ 
tors that make for a better government. Progressive 
men and measures that make for a better government 
are not supported nor are harmful men and measures re¬ 
buked in a governmental unit whose electorate is illiter¬ 
ate, or unintelligent with reference to the vital issues of 
the day. 
Moreover, the voter has found that his vote has been 
too often exploited and used, not for the general good, 
but for the benefit of those in control of the machinery 
of government and their friends. The immense amount 
of publicity and propaganda that is issued through our 
magazines and newspapers, reaching and influencing as 
they do practically every adult of voting age, has brought 
to the voter a vast deal of information which he is often 
powerless to digest or interpret. The result is that many 
voters cast their ballots on vital issues of the day on the 
basis often of misinformation and prejudice instead of 
accurate information and sound judgment. 
I am reminded in this connection of the story of the 
four blind Hindus and the elephant. They went to find 
out what an elephant was like. One approached the giant 
beast from the rear and touching the tail remarked, “I 
perceive that the elephant is very much like a rope.” 
Another one as he groped forward met one of the ele¬ 
phant’s legs and said, “Nay, but he is more like a tree 
trunk.” The third Hindu touched the elephant’s ear. 
This one stoutly maintained, “I agree not with either of 
you, for I find the elephant like a huge leaf.” The last 
of the four Hindus happened to touch an ivory tusk, and 
he disagreed with all his fellows. “You are all in error,” 
he said, “this elephant I find, is hard and smooth like a 
pebble stone.” We can easily imagine how after this 
investigation the four retired to a quiet spot to argue it 
out. 
The story is an excellent example of the futility of 
trying to base sound judgment upon misinformation or 
insufficient information, for insufficient information on 
any subject upon which one is called to pass judgment 
constitutes misinformation—misleading information, if 
you please. Moreover, if the four blind Hindus had 
pooled their observations at par their conception of the 
elephant would still have been incomplete. Partial truths 
are often more harmful than untruths. 
All of this is but to say that if the vital issue confront¬ 
ing us as a people today is that of better government 
and I believe we are generally agreed that it is—we must 
support and strengthen every agency that makes for bet¬ 
ter citizens, for upon the successful issue of the effort of 
our American Democracy to secure and maintain a pro¬ 
gressively better government—a government better than 
any other form of government depends in large measure 
the future of “Government of the people, by the people, 
for the people” the world over. 
The chief agency of a democracy for the production of 
better citizens is obviously its schools. Upon these it must 
depend not only for the perpetuation of its basic institu¬ 
tions but also for their progressive improvement from 
generation to generation. That the chief business of a 
democracy is education has become axiomatic. 
SOME COMPARATIVE COSTS 
And yet what do the figures say. The character of a 
nation’s expenditures are some measure of its sense of 
relative values. 
We are spending as a nation fifty million dollars daily 
for food and barely three millions daily for education of 
every type and grade. Approximately one-fifth of our 
population is in school. We are spending, then, roughly 
speaking, more than three times as much for food for our 
