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The Nature of Our Exhibits: Subjects and Objects 
The conception of a museum as a collection of labeled objects is 
a familiar one. The function of a museum as an exhibit of szb- 
jects is less familiar; it has recently been stressed by the Buffalo 
Museum of Science which opened its new building in 1929. It 
has rooms devoted, not to rocks and fossils, but to geology; not 
to animals, but to zoology; not to plants, but to botany. Other 
rooms are devoted to such subjects as heredity and evolution. 
This is in the direction away from mere public imstruction and 
approaching public education. There is a difference between the 
two, 
The conception of a botanic garden as an outdoor museum has 
been more consciously recognized in recent years, but most persons 
still think of a botanic garden as exhibiting only plants—a_ place 
where one may go to see plants and learn their names. The 
Brooklyn Botanic Garden has from the beginning developed along 
the line of exhibiting subjects as well as objects. The Japanese 
Garden was an early development along that line. Our Rose 
Garden exhibits not only roses, but illustrates the history of the 
horticultural rose. Our Ecological Garden illustrates the relation 
of plants to their environment. Our General Systematic Section 
illustrates the mter-relationship of plant families, and certain as- 
pects and conceptions of plant evolution. Our Local Flora sec- 
tion illustrates ecology and plant geography—as well as local flora 
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plants. 
The same is true of our Conservatory exhibits: The [conomic 
House illustrates economic botany; House No. 2 is chiefly devoted 
to the subject of plant evolution; another exhibit illustrates house 
plants; another, adaptation to desert conditions; and so on. 
In harmony with this idea our Guides are guides not merely 
to the exhibit but also to that aspect of botanical science illustrated 
by the given exhibit. For example, our Guide to the Rock Garden, 
while based upon our own rock garden, 1s in effect an elementary 
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treatise on the general subject of rock gardens. Collections in- 
stalled from this point of view (whether in museums or botanic 
gardens) serve a much larger educational purpose than when the 
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installation centers only in the various plants. 
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