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ideas permeated and influenced the great mass of the people.” 
The study of science, fostered and facilitated by museums, bo- 
tanic gardens, and zoological parks, is to be pursued not merely 
for its own sake, valuable as that is, but to secure a solid foun- 
dation and balance wheel for the exercise of the “ reflective facul- 
ties ””—for the study of philosophy that shall have meaning and 
value for the great mass of the people. 
On such broad and advanced conceptions as those indicated 
above did the masterful architects of Prospect Park urge that the 
park area now comprising the Brooklyn Botanic Garden be set 
aside for museums and other educational purposes of a like na- 
ture. In the present Garden, by the combination of scientific re- 
search with popular education on a large scale, the recommenda- 
tion of the original plan of fifty years ago is being carried out 
more closely than might have been anticipated. 
In the Ninth Annual Report of the Commissioners of Prospect 
Park (January, 1869, p. 254), the need of a city, then seen to be 
rapidly approaching a population of one million, making ampler 
provision for its “young and aspiring historical, botanical and 
other kindred societies” was recognized. The park lands lying 
east of Flatbush Ave., but north of what is now Eastern Park- 
way had been considered as a possible site for a botanic garden 
or for a zoological park, but this site was rejected by the land- 
scape architects (p. 279), as possessing “no evident natural fit- 
iess for either one of these purposes.” 
ot to go into matters of litigation over the sale of park lands 
east of Flatbush Ave., it may be briefly stated that the plan 
finally adopted included the sale of the “east side lands” lying 
north of Eastern Parkway, and the retention of those south of the 
Parkway between Washington and Flatbush Avenues. This, 
excepting the Mt. Prospect Reservoir area, was the original 
tract leased by the city to the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and 
Sciences in December, 1909, for botanic garden purposes. 
From the above account it is seen that the idea of a botanic 
garden in Brooklyn has been a leaven in the lump for over fifty 
years. Fortunate indeed it was that the area now comprising 
the Botanic Garden was not sold by the city to be laid out in 
streets, utilized for the site of an armory, or for any other than 
