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intellectual activity which enables us to obtain from them, as a 
abor of love, a kind of service of far greater value than money 
can buy. 
We shall now proceed to the ceremony of laying the corner 
stone which has been generously donated by the contractors of 
the building, Messrs. Frymier and Hanna, whose interest in the 
building, as thus evidenced, goes beyond mere business considera- 
tions and has regard to the important purposes to which it is to 
be dedicated. Our thanks are due to them for the generous 
thought and appreciation of the work of the Garden which has in- 
spired this gift. 
We have invited Mr. Alfred T. White, chairman of the Botanic 
Garden Governing Committee of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts 
and Sciences, to lay the corner stone of the building. No one 
else so fittingly as he, for reasons to which I have referred, could 
perform this solemn act. 
Remarks of Mr. Alfred T. White 
The land occupied by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden was for the 
most part acquired by the old city of Brooklyn at the same time 
that the first lands were acquired for Prospect Park, more than 
fifty years ago,* but the ground remained unvisited by the pub- 
lic until leased to the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences 
December 28, 1909, for the purpose of establishing the Brooklyn 
Botanic Garden. In the minds of those most interested in fur- 
thering this project the prominent purposes were to bring into 
public use and enjoyment a long neglected and valuable piece of 
the city’s property by creating a botanic garden which should be 
at once beautiful and instructive, attractive to the general public 
and especially educational to childern, and stimulating a love of 
nature in all. 
Today we are laying the corner stone of the Instruction Build- 
ing, in which the indoor classes will be taught by lectures and 
demonstrations, supplemented by study in the plant houses and 
in the open garden. The southerly section of this building, to- 
gether with the palmhouse and one of the planthouses, was com- 
* Construction work on Prospect Park was begun on July 1, 1866, and 
the Park was first thrown open to the public in October, 1867. 
