BOTANIC GARDENS — WHAT ROLE TODAY? 



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is no criterion here, where there is no degree-seeking incentive, no require- 

 ments, and no reward other than personal satisfaction. Purely lecture courses 

 for the general public are likely to fall flat ; but lecture demonstrations supple- 

 mented with learning-by-doing laboratory, greenhouse, and occasional field 

 experience, are almost sure to win and keep a following. Popular courses for 

 children are a part of the pattern too, as are summer gardens for children. 



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3000 



2000 



1000 

 500 



Fig. 2. All public libraries. There were about 100 public libraries in the United 

 States in the year 1850. In the ensuing hundred years the number of libraries in- 

 creased approximately 60 times while the United States population increased only 

 sixfold. At the end of the Carnegie-grant period in 1917, about half the libraries 

 in the United States had come from Carnegie funds. {Data from S,SS1 of the 6,072 

 libraries reporting to the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 

 1950.) 



Here at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden we offer 25 to 30 popular courses 

 for adults each year. Some of them attract as few as 15 students, and most 

 of them from 25 to 100 or more. They meet three to five times and are given 

 once or, in some cases, twice each year. The most heavily attended courses 

 are those on House Plants, Home Landscaping, Flower Arrangement, Christ- 

 mas Decorations, Bonsai (dwarfed plants as the Japanese grow them), and 

 Spring Planting. We have learned that those who teach are as important as 

 the subject matter. People like the atmosphere provided by a dynamic in- 

 structor — one who knows the subject from experience, not from books. They 



