BOTANIC GARDENS WHAT ROLE TODAY? 543 



they would be fulfilling a worthy mission in the "American way of life." The 

 amateurs have long needed assistance, yet most of us who are professionals 

 have neither taken advantage of their enthusiastic movement nor have we 

 contributed to it. Now may well be the time to join forces with them and 

 get under way with a definite plan for widespread education in horticulturally 

 slanted botany. 



While most university botany departments at present offer no training that 

 will help supply personnel for popular education programs in botanic gardens 

 and arboretums, there is every reason that they should do so. In some schools 

 such training is given in departments of horticulture, but liberal arts colleges 

 rarely offer horticulture in any form and students there can learn about plants 

 only what traditionally slanted botany courses offer. Why not a course on 

 species and varieties of cultivated plants — the outstanding ornamental plants 

 of the world? And perhaps a course in landscape design? Linked with these 

 might be other courses that would give further basic preparation for educa- 

 tional personnel in botanic gardens. Such instruction would by no means 

 assure students of being fully qualified to take part in the popular education 

 programs botanic gardens should be offering, but it would be a starter. 



Some botanists will view such a program with jaundiced eye and regard it as 

 departing too far from the teaching of "science." But why should botanists 

 not face up to the responsibility of meeting the needs of students who might 

 have an urge to make botany socially useful and widely interesting? Why 

 limit the opportunity of the bachelor's-degree botanist either to going on for 

 a higher degree in scientific work or to becoming a laboratory assistant with 

 little or no opportunity for advancement? There are many students with 

 outgoing personalities who would never find personal fulfillment in laboratory 

 fact finding, nor are they attracted to it. Yet many are interested in plants 

 and would work eagerly toward a socially slanted botanical goal. Why 

 shouldn't these students have botanists' attention? 



The botanic garden's opportunity lies in the fact that the training program 

 suggested here cannot end with the college or university. A system of well-paid 

 botanic-garden apprentice instructorships is needed, so that promising candi- 

 dates can work with those who have set up and are now successfully operating 

 programs of popular botanical education. There are only a few people in 

 the entire country presently qualified to train students for this type of 

 educational work. These people have learned from their predecessors, and 

 frequently the hard way — from their own experience. It is they who must 

 organize the apprentice-training programs for work in this field. 



This seems to suggest that there are any number of educational opportuni- 

 ties in botanic gardens waiting for the persons so trained. Actually, such 

 opportunities are at present limited, though at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 

 for example, we could probably use ten promising college graduates in the 

 next two years. But more important, every botanic garden that now lacks a 



