20 
structor. Many adults, also, enroll for courses year after year. 
Something besides mere information about plants results from 
such work. 
More detailed reports follow from the curators of public and of 
elementary instruction, 
School Service 
City Wide—Beginning with the Borough of Brooklyn, our 
service to the public elementary and high schools has eradually 
expanded until now it extends to all five boroughs. This includes 
supplying living and preserved plant material for study, Petri 
dishes filled with sterilized agar for the study of bacteria and other 
microscopic forms, penny packets of seeds for planting in school 
and home gardens, talks in schools, the loaning of lantern slides 
and accompanying text for lectures or talks by the teachers, con- 
ferences with teachers, visits of classes to the Garden, and other 
activities, 
Conferences with Teachers—lt is significant that more than 
6,600 teachers had individual and group conferences with members 
of staff concerning some aspect of their work in botany, nature 
hae 
study, or geography. The number has inereased from 288 
129 $6370 in £50. arid 6.66> for 1031. 
Attention is called to the table of statistics of school service on 
1 
— 
page 21, and in particular to the increase in the number of teachers 
borrowing ioan lectures (with slides) from 97 in 1929 to 315 in 
1931; also to the increase in the number of living plants supplied 
to beautify classrooms from 307 in 1929 to 420 in 1930, and 689 
in 1931. More than 786,000 packets of seeds were supplied to 
school children in 1931 as compared to 740,791 the year before. 
Vhe preparation of lists of woody and herbaceous plants to 
serve as a basis for Field Tests by the Board of Examiners of the 
Board of Education in connection with examinations for the 
position of First Assistant (Head of Department) in High 
Schools, and the Course of Five Lectures for biology pupils in 
Vraming School is 
— 
High and Junior High Schools and Maxwel 
reported by the curator of public instruction on pages 67-68. 
Other details of cooperation with the schools are included in 
the appended reports of the curators of public and of elementary 
instruction. 
