108 



THE NEED OF PUBLIC DRINKING FOUNTAINS 



The following- letter, under date of June 13, 1923, is only one 

 of many requests and inquiries received concerning the possibility 

 of installing bubbler drinking fountains in the Botanic Garden 

 grounds. With our growing attendance (over 65,000 in May, 

 1923) there is an increasingly large number of children who 

 particularly feel the lack of adequate opportunity to get a drink 

 of water. The letter, addressed to the director, reads as follows : 



" I am writing this in favor of a number of small people who 

 visit your beautiful gardens every day and who would very much 

 like to know whether there could possibly be a drinking fountain 

 placed somewhere on the lawns so as. to enable them to quench 

 their thirst these hot summer days. 



" I myself am the teacher of a small kindergarten group and 

 find the present possibilities of obtaining drinking water rather 

 difficult. 



" I am quite sure that also a number of mothers who take their 

 little ones to the gardens in the afternoon would greatly appreciate 

 the comfort of a sanitary drinking fountain. 



" Hoping that it may be possible for you to arrange for this, I 

 am 



Very sincerely yours." 



Our reply contained the following statement : " We have, on a 

 number of occasions, urged in our Annual Reports the need of 

 more drinking fountains. At present the only probability of our 

 being able to secure funds for this purpose in the near future is 

 for some public-spirited individual or some organization to make 

 a contribution for this purpose." 



NOTES 



Inscription in the Library.' — During the first week in May the 

 following Latin quotation from Linnaeus (Philosophia Botanica, 

 Stockholm, 1751 ) was placed on the narrow oblong panels at the 

 edge of the balcony floor in the reading room of the library : 



" Verus botanicus ubique scientiam Botanices excolit ; 

 Oculis propiis, quae singularia sunt, observat; 

 Nee sua solum ex Auctoribus compilat." 



