36 
funds (not appropriated by the city) and fill this position for 
IQIQ. 
Department of Public Instruction 
Cooperation with Schools—Hitherto, each year has shown a 
gratifying increase in the use of the Garden by public and pri- 
vate schools, but during 1918 the unusually poor transit facilities 
tended to decrease the number of visiting classes. The numbers 
were also further diminished by the plan (see p. 67) to provide 
more intensive work for a smaller number, especially in connec- 
tion with certain conditions arising on account of the war. 
It may not, perhaps, be amiss to call attention here to the fact 
that while, in certain phases of our work, figures of attendance 
are a fair, though not an unqualified indication of success, there 
is, on the whole, no kind of an organization whose work is so 
poorly and inadequately reflected and recorded in terms of 
quantity as an educational institution. True, it is often consid- 
ered typically American to estimate the worth of a thing from 
its size, and colleges and universities have not been guiltless of 
parading figures of large attendance as an evidence of large ac- 
complishment. But there is probably no class of institutions 
where large figures may so often have just the opposite signifi- 
cance. By centering our energies on giving “popular” lectures 
to large audiences of children and adults in our lecture hall we 
could easily more than double any figures of attendance reported 
in the department of public instruction. But, while recognizing 
that such lectures do have value and should form a part of our 
educational program, we believe that they possess the least edu- 
cational value of all forms of instruction, especially for children, 
and so we have put forth our best effort in other directions. 
Over 4,380 pupils visited the Garden during the year from 
public and private schools, and the attendance at various lectures 
and talks given outside the Garden by various members of staff 
was not less than 10,000. 
Five out of eight Brooklyn high schools have depended on the 
Garden during the year for the filling of Petri dishes with sterile 
nutrient agar for use in the study of bacteria and molds. 
The curator of elementary instruction calls attention (p. 68 
