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with only a modicum of leisure, one wishes chiefly to rest. It is 
ample leisure, with a margin beyond what is required for rest and 
recreation, that makes one “ want to be busy.” “ God forbid that I 
should ever be at leisure,” said Dionysius the Elder, living in classic 
Greece, where the system of slavery gave abundant leisure. 
Health and plenty and ample leisure are three gifts of applied 
science to man. He does not always avail himself of all three. 
Through ignorance or prejudice he may miss health; through 
political and economic stupidity and greed the masses may miss 
plenty. But, like greatness to some, leisure seems now to be 
thrust upon nearly all of us, nolens, volens. What shall we do 
with it?“ Adult education ” is the prompt answer of the educator. 
This, of course, implies a belief that the average adult is not only 
capable of being educated, but wishes to be. In fact, it implies 
that he is more or less eager to be, for it is of the essence of worth- 
while “adult education” that it is voluntary and spontaneous. In 
fact, the complete picture of the realized program portrays the 
mass of the people like hot polloi in classic Greece eagerly fre- 
quenting the lecture room, the museum, the botanic garden, the 
library. The amount of positive effort put forth will depend in 
part on how inspiring and stimulating the lectures and labeled ex- 
hibits are. 
In science education another factor is involved. Science is 
founded on observation (although it does not stop there), and a 
program of adult (as well as childhood and adolescent) education 
in science necessitates provision for each student to get the data 
of science, in part at least, by first hand observation of natural 
phenomena in field and laboratory. [Tere is where the plantations 
of a botanic garden function; they are, in essence, an assembly in 
— 
small compass of a rich assortment of facts of plant life. In the 
plantations and conservatories one has the advantage of a range 
oO 
extensive travel. The study of this material (with or without the 
phenomena that otherwise could be seen and_ studied only by 
guidance of a teacher) lays the necessary foundation for profitable 
reading and discussion, supplemented and enriched by lectures. 
