20 
to continue in leisure time and under guidance, to follow some 
intellectual interest. It ranges from flower arrangement, which 
is essentially an art course, to the more technical aspects of 
botanical science. It includes much of a strictly horticultural 
nature, for a botanic garden is the common meeting ground of the 
correlative sciences of botany and horticulture. In addition, 
it includes opportunity for research for candidates for advanced 
degrees and for those who have already obtained such degrees. 
The appended report of the curator of public instruction indi- 
cates a gratifying response to the opportunities offered, especially 
when one keeps it in mind that for most of the courses a nominal 
fee is asked. 
During the year 94 popular and semi-popular papers and re- 
views by members of the Garden personnel have been published, 
and nearly 50 news releases have been sent to newspapers. 
Elementary Education 
“In my youth,” says Will Durant, “I rejected astronomy, 
botany, and ornithology as effeminate sciences—as_ dismal 
catalogs of names. I thought I should be able to enjoy flowers, 
birds, and stars as well without as with a knowledge of their 
relationships. But now I think that if I knew these 
ee 
names anc 
lustrous forms more intimately, and could call them by their 
first names, I should enjoy them more, if only with the half- 
conscious pleasure that one derives from the presence of familiar 
things. So I think I should have a course in Nature running 
through my children’s years, ranging from a recognition of the 
Pleiades to the art of making a garden grow.” 
This coming year (1938) will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of 
our educational work in teaching boys and girls “the art of mak- 
and all related information within the range 
ing a garden grow,” 
of their comprehension. The work has been under the able ad- 
ministration of Miss Shaw, who organized and developed it, 
blazing a new trail in the educational program of a botanic 
garden, and offering an essentially new type of cooperation with 
city schools. The attendance figures in her appended report, 
large as they are, do not tell a complete story. In the first place, 
the figures might have been much larger had attendance not been 
made a goal wholly secondary to solid educational results in 
