FIRST ANNUAL BANQUET. 115 



known, especially to the class of men thus indicated, the 

 purpose, the promise and the progress, from year to year, 

 of the institution upon the planning and building up of which 

 he bestowed the thoughtand labor of more than forty years, 

 by his last will devoting the bulk of his fortune to its endow- 

 ment. With what success his beneficent and far-reaching 

 plans shall be carried out, is for the future to reveal. What 

 its promise is, what similar institutions have done and are 

 doing elsewhere, and what benefits may be expected from 

 it to the people not only of our own State and of the United 

 States but to mankind, we hope presently to hear from 

 those who are competent to speak. I have been requested 

 to say an introductory word or two as to its purpose and 

 organization. 



In general, that purpose cannot be stated in better or 

 briefer words than those of the tribunal which, upon the 

 application of the Trustees for a judicial construction of the 

 will of Mr. Shaw, determined and adjudged that by it was 

 created **a charitable trust, for educational and scientific 

 purposes, in the special branch of botany." ^ 



As more fully set forth in the will itself, his purpose 

 was, to establish and endow — 



" a Botanical Garden, easily accessible, which should be forever kept 

 up and maintained for the cultivation and propagation of plants, 

 flowers, fruit and forest trees, and other productions of the vegetable 

 kingdom, and a museum and library connected therewith and devoted to 

 the same and to the science of botany, horticulture and allied objects, 

 for the promotion of science and knowledge." 



Express provision is also made for instruction to garden 

 pupils in both practical and scientific horticulture, agricult- 

 ure and arboriculture, also for scientific investigation in 

 botany proper, in vegetable pliysiology, the diseases of 

 plants, the study of the forms of vegetable life, and of ani- 

 mal life injurious to vegetation, and for experimental in- 

 vestigations in horticulture, arboriculture and kindred sub- 

 jects: it being also provided that the Garden shall be kept 

 open, for the benefit of the public at large, as the Trustees 



