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tions of biology such as biogenesis, evolution, the principles of 
heredity, the germ theory of disease. It is equally true with 
reference to ignorance of the facts of plant and animal life, in- 
cluding matters of crop-production, sanitation, hygiene, and 
public health. This is not to say that everyone should become an 
authority on some branch of biology, but that a general sym- 
pathetic interest in, and intelligent comprehension of, the main 
facts and principles of botanical and zoological science is of the 
highest social importance. The educational work of the Brooklyn 
Botanic Garden has been organized in recognition of this truth. 
“ Effectiveness Ratio” of our Educational Contacts. 
A survey of the educational activities of forty-seven American 
museums has been made by Mr. Edmund Cooke, of the depart- 
ment of Education, Cleveland Museum of Natural History. His 
report, published in the Museum News for June 1, 1934, notes that, 
“Practically without exception museums are endeavoring to 
make their influence felt in the great public task of education 
the museums have expanded and elaborated their educational 
activities to a greater extent than they have any other of their 
departments of work.”’ 
The “effectiveness ratio,’’ or ratio of educational contacts to 
city population, for 31 museums located in both ‘“‘large’’ and 
‘““small’’ cities aes of over and under 250,000 population) 
raried from 5% to 265%, with the median at 12.6%. ‘‘This 
extreme Beene is no doubt due, to some extent, to differences 
in accounting practices, but the writer does not believe that factor 
is large. More important is the fact that museums strive in 
different degrees to reach a large proportion of their constituency. 
They differ in resources, energy, and most of all in their concep- 
tion of what their educational mission is. .oreover, a very large 
city becomes in itself an obstacle to the fulfillment of that mission, 
however energetic the museum staff may be.”’ 
The author then refers to graphs showing that the median for 
the “‘small’’ city group is 18.4, while that for the “‘large’’ city 
group is only 7.9. We comment, in this connection, that most 
of our educationally aggressive museums are in “‘large’”’ cities; 
this fact emphasizes the author’s deduction that the very size of a 
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