AF;bSyPih9ai3m'j     Next  StePs  in  Botanical  Science.  65 
vision  of  what  it  is,  and  what  it  is  not,  and  we  shall  no  longer  find 
textbooks  of  botany  made  to  include  so  much  that  is  not  botany, 
while  leaving  out  so  much  that  is  botany. 
This  difference  of  opinion  as  to  what  constitutes  botany  results 
in  the  absence  of  united  effort.  In  its  simplest  aspect  it  takes  the 
familiar  form  of  uncertainty  as  to  the  content  and  value  of  the 
work  done  by  the  student  elsewhere  when  he  transfers  himself 
from  one  college  to  another.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is  yet  no 
agreement  as  to  what  is  a  standard  first-year's  course  in  college 
botany.  What  teacher  has  not  been  sorely  puzzled  to  know  to 
what  courses  to  admit  men  who  came  from  another  college  with 
credits  in  botany !  It  is  quite  unscientific  to  try  to  account  for 
this  condition  by  an  excusatory  reference  to  the  individual  pecu- 
liarities and  the  personal  differences  of  the  teachers.  In  science 
we  consider  the  personal  equation  as  something  to  be  determined 
and  eliminated,  and  not  to  be  excused  and  tolerated.  Every  differ- 
ence in  the  treatment  of,  say  the  first-year  course,  is  just  so  far 
an  indication  of  a  more  or  less  unscientific  attitude  by  one  or  all 
of  the  teachers  concerned. ,  We  work  in  this  haphazard,  discon- 
nected way  either  because  we  do  not  know  any  better,  or  knowing 
better  we  think  it  not  worth  while.  Either  horn  of  this  dilemma 
is  equally  unworthy  of  our  acceptance.  Ignorance  is  no  valid 
excuse  for  the  scientific  man,  and  in  science  everything  is  worth 
while.  It  is  to  our  shame  as  botanists  that  we  acknowledge  our 
in  ability  hitherto  to  frame  a  standard  first-year  course  in  college 
botany.  When  the  science  is  definitely  formulated  in  the  minds  of 
botanists  the  present  disagreement  will  no  longer  exist.  Surely 
we  now  "  see  as  through  a  glass  darkly." 
The  Applications  of  Botany. — Again,  it  may  be  remarked  that 
we  are  to-day  placing  great  emphasis  upon  the  applications  of 
botany  to  some  of  the  great  human  activities,  especially  to  agricul- 
ture. Witness  the  agricultural  experiment  stations  With  their 
botanists  of  all  kinds,  from  those  who  study  weeds  and  poisonous 
plants,  to  the  physiologists,  pathologists,  ecologists  and  plant 
breeders.  And  as  we  look  over  the  work  they  do  we  are  filled  with 
admiration  and  pride  that  they  have  individually  done  so  well. 
But  it  is  not  the  cumulative  work  of  an  army  of  science,  it  is 
rather  the  disconnected,  unrelated  work  of  so  many  individuals. 
They  are  doing  scientific  work  in  an  unscientific  way.    There  is  as 
