NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR. 17 
building into three sides of a quadrangle devoted to admin- 
istrative offices, and research and museum collections ; and 
so soon as the Board shall find itself in a position to contem- 
plate beginning work on these plans, steps will no doubt be 
taken to secure a suitable architectural treatment of this 
building so that a sufficient portion may be erected at an 
early day to relieve the present overcrowding of the cases 
and working quarters. 
The instruction of garden pupils, on which a full report 
was made at the end of 1896,* has been conducted this 
year on the same lines as heretofore. One pupil, Otto 
Bogula, completed the course in March last, and was at 
once given responsible employment in charge of the garden 
and plant houses of an Eastern college. The vacancy thus 
created was filled by the award of a scholarship, on the 
result of examination, to Arthur Gross, who had been a 
paying pupil during the preceding autumn and winter. In 
October of the present year, under the general authority 
conferred by the Board in 1894,} the first lady pupil was 
admitted to the gardening course, in the person of Miss 
Eda A. Sutermeister, a graduate of the Kansas City High 
School, who takes this work as preparatory to the more 
advanced study of landscape art. 
The office staff has remained unchanged through the past 
year, and, as in previous years, a small proportion of the 
time of the Director and his botanical and horticultural 
assistants has been given to research work, the more com- 
plete results of which have already been published or will 
shortly appear in the Reports of the Garden or elsewhere. 
Through the entire year one or more investigators not 
regularly in the employ of the institution have occupied 
research tables at the Garden, one of them being a candi- 
date for the Doctor’s degree from Washington University ; 
and a considerable number of advanced workers from a 
distance have visited the Garden for the purpose of utilizing 
* Rept. 8: 25. + Rept. 8: 31. 
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