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activity—with corresponding stimulus to the instructor, and cor- 
respondingly gratifying results from the educational standpoint. 
Courses of Instruction 
Children, as well as adults, respond to opportunities for courses 
of instruction (even when tuition is charged) with more enthu- 
siasm than they do to free lectures. Figures of attendance at 
courses at the Botanic Garden are fairly impressive. During 
1928 the attendance at lectures and courses combined, in the form 
of classes from the City schools, was 54,749, while attendance of 
adults and children at our own courses, organized without reference 
to the schools, was nearly 50,000—a total attendance of 100,000— 
the larger part of which was at courses of instruction, where the 
attendance at each session of the class was rarely more than 50. 
The total number of registrations in courses during 1928 was 6257. 
Educational Value of Tuition Fees—Attention is also here 
called to the fact that a small charge to children for tuition makes 
the difference between failure and success. When this work was 
started no tuition was charged; the attendance was irregular and 
uncertain ; the work was not succeeding. After it was decided to 
make a nominal charge the attendance became full, regular, and 
prompt. The fees are so small as to have value chiefly for their 
educational effect on the children. For example, for Course Al, 
Fall Greenhouse work, Saturdays, October 27 to Dec. 27, nine 
sessions, the tuition fee is fifteen cents. 
A Prospectus of courses of instruction and other educational 
advantages offered by the Garden may be had for the asking; also 
copies of Brooklyn Botanic Garden Leaflets, Series XVI, Nos. 
5-7 (June 2, 1928), which gives a survey of the work of the De- 
partment of Elementary Instruction from its organization in 1913 
to 1928. 
Children’s Gardens 
Children’s Gardens were started at the Brooklyn Botanic 
Garden in 1914 on part of the site of the present Laboratory 
Building. The “South Addition”, turned over to the Botanic 
Garden by the City, in 1914, it was laid out in 1915 with provi- 
sion for the Children’s Garden along the south east border—a plot 
