JULIAN HAWTHORNE.

"A plant is not to be studied as an absolutely dead thing, but

rather as a sentient being.... To measure petals, to count

stamens, to describe pistils without reference to their

functions, or the why and wherefore of their existence, is to

content one's self with husks in the presence of a feast of

fatness - to listen to the rattle of dry bones rather than the

heavenly harmonies of life. We have reason to be profoundly

thankful for the signs to be seen on every side, that the dreary

stuff which was called botany in the teaching of the past will

soon cease to masquerade in its stolen costume, and that our

children and our children's children will study not dried

specimens or drier books, but the living things which Nature

furnishes in such profusion....



"The reason of this radical change is not far to seek. Since man

has learned that the universal brotherhood of life includes

himself as the highest link in the chain of organic creation, his

interest in all things that live and move and have a being has

greatly increased. The movements of the monad now appeal to him

in a way that was impossible under the old conceptions. He sees

in each of the millions of living forms with which the earth is

teeming, the action of many of the laws which are operating in

himself; and has learned that to a great extent his welfare is

dependent on these seemingly insignificant relations; that in

ways undreamed of a century ago they affect human progress." -