BANQUET TO GARDENERS. 45 
struction, made available and utilized during that early 
period in life when there is leisure for such schooling and 
when the mind is pliable and retentive. We cannot close 
our eyes to the indications even now before us that educa- 
tion is in nearly every calling a prerequisite to success, and 
that the man who is deprived of the opportunity to obtain 
it, either through his own willfulness or the deplorable force 
of circumstances, will in all likelihood soon find his per- 
manent place in that large and steadily increasing class of our 
fellow-beings to whom life is but hopeless drudgery accom- 
panied by privation and embittered by the thought that 
little more can be offered to their offspring. 
As an educational institution, outside of pure botany, 
the Missouri Botanical Garden has yet to assume its place. 
But the wishes of its Founder in this respect are very ex- 
plicit; and the Managing Board have already instituted a 
course of training for gardeners, from which much is hoped, 
although the number of young men to whom instruction can 
be given at any one time is very limited. This course has 
been in operation for about half-a-year. It is on trial, and 
we hope and expect to profit by whatever lessons are brought 
out by time, the real test of all things; but thus far | am 
pleased with the outcome. What it is proposed to do is, in 
brief, as follows: To take a limited number of boys or 
young men who have obtained a rudimentary knowledge of 
the English branches, and by offering them free lodgings, 
and wages sufficient to insure a bare subsistence during the 
time devoted to their studies, to practice them in all of the 
operations of the Garden, from the most menial up to the 
most responsible, at the same time seeing to it that they are 
given theoretical instruction in the direct line of their work 
and in such subjects as book-keeping, surveying, botany 
and entomology, and other studies that are considered 
necessary for a trained intelligent gardener,— such a one 
‘as either of us would wish his son to become if he were to 
be a gardener. This work has been started by the estab- 
lishment of six scholarships, of which one is reserved for 
