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3. Lectures to Pupils and Teachers 
Linutations of Lectures 
One of the most common methods employed by museums with 
classes is to give lectures to large audiences of several hundred 
to a thousand or more children. Another method is the so-called 
“ Story Hour,” with smaller groups. Lecturing to large audiences 
gives impressive attendance figures for annual reports, but, as we 
have said elsewhere (Fourteenth Annual Report of the Brooklyn 
Botanic Garden, 1924, p. 24), lecturing to large audiences of young 
children usually yields smaller educational returns than anything 
one can do with them. The Story Hour has the advantage of 
more intimate contact with small groups, and should be more ef- 
fective than lecturers. 
When Lectures are Effective 
During a lecture or story hour the pupils’ minds are more or 
less passive (so far as the subject of the lecture is concerned !) 
in contrast to the well conducted class exercise. But, of course, 
there are occasions when a lecture to fairly large sized audiences 
of children may be made effective, and may, indeed, seem the only 
thing to do. The lecture seems justified when the main object is 
the imparting of information on broad subjects, easily compre- 
hended, and when the stereopticon or motion pictures are to be 
used. Lectures are frequently given at the Botanic Garden, and 
a list of some of the subjects may be found on pages 248-249. 
Our lecture auditorium seats 570, and is sometimes filled several 
times in one day. 
Syllabi 
The Botanic Garden is specially interested to stimulate and 
assist in “follow up” work with classes after they have returned 
from a visit to the Garden. One method of insuring this, and of 
helping to make the work definite and accurate, is by providing a 
syllabus of the given lecture—one for the teacher and one for each 
pupil. The syllabus may be pasted in the pupil’s note book, and 
aids in oral or written review, or both, as the teacher may deter- 
mine. By this method the results of the lecture are more definite 
and substantial; the lecture is less apt to have been chiefly a 
