A Word about Knowledge. Half a loaf may be better than no bread, but such a rule will not apply to all matters. Half a fact is not better than ignorance. Recently, not very far from New York, the Boston idea of naming the trees in the public grounds—painting upon narrow boards both the botanical and common names—was adopted by the city authorities. _Acer rubrum_, | _Quercus alba_, Red maple, | White oak, and so on, were nailed to the various trees, and each, as is not always the case, in its proper place. While the work was in progress the following conversation took place: “What a deal of money is spent in advertising patent medicines and such stuff nowadays!” remarked Blank to his friend. “See there!” and he pointed to a maple properly labeled, adding, “That’s some new bitters or a salve for corns, I suppose.” “No, it isn’t,” replied Double Blank, with an air of infinite wisdom; “these boards are the names of the different kinds of trees, nailed up for the benefit of the ignorant in such matters. Here’s another one, and, don’t you see, it gives the scientific and common names both? _Quercus_, white; _alba_, an oak. I remember that much Latin, anyhow.” Is it true that life is too short to acquire decent knowledge of natural history, along with arithmetic and geography? And what profiteth it to study Latin if such a display of ignorance as the above is the ultimate outcome? Botany and zoölogy are in the curriculum of many lesser institutions than colleges; but, from the manner in which these subjects are taught in some places, they would better be omitted. These two worthy citizens whose conversation was overheard—and the report thereof is not “doctored”—had both been through a course of botany, and one of them had struggled through a Latin reader. There is undoubtedly still a considerable amount of prejudice against science, or “organized common sense,” as Kingdon Clifford has happily called it, though why I do not pretend to know. If it is a fact that birds fly and fishes swim, can any harm come of knowing it, and of how and why they fly and swim? And, a step further, if some birds swim instead of fly, and certain fishes climb trees, as is true, is knowledge of the fact likely to prove dangerous? Yet again, if ten thousand facts have been discovered, as they have, which upset the ideas of our grandfathers, need we tremble? I trow not. And this leads me to a word also about “newspaper science,” of which more anon. What wonderful statements creep into the local papers! Impossible snakes, no less impossible birds, and creatures too strange for even the nightmare of a zoölogist, figure now and then as captured in the neighborhood of an inland town, yet no one contradicts the reporter or sees the absurdity of it all. The mythical hoop-snake bespatters the “patent outsides” of many a village weekly. Better, by far, absolute ignorance than half the truth.