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only with children and adolescents, hut with their teachers as well, 

 and it was of the highest importance that the curator-in-charge 

 should understand the teacher's problems, not merely from reading 

 about them, but from first-hand experience in the schoolroom". 

 Otherwise teachers would not come by hundreds, as they do each 

 year to the Botanic Garden, to consult with the curator on ways 

 and means of making their work more etTective. 



And so you can realize how vastly imjwrtant was the choice of 

 the first person to undertake this new thing in education, of de- 

 veloping at a botanic garden an educational program for children 

 and their teachers. 



What is this rare gift which the teacher's college can only 

 sup]5lement but cannot confer? T.et me approach the statement 

 of It by quoting from the RcUgio Medici, of Sir Thomas Browne. 

 " I cannot go to cure the body of my patient," said he, " but I 

 forget my profession, and call unto God for his soul." 



Now, if you could look at the manuscript from which I ani 

 reading, you would see the dim but distinct outline of the portrait 

 of her whose quarter century of service we are met to celebrate 

 this evening. And I haven't the slightest doubt but that that por- 

 trait, and the name that goes with it, have been in the back of the 

 mind of each one of you, as I have been speaking. 



Sir Thomas Browne, attending a sick patient, ^forgot his pro- 

 fession in his solicitude for the man himself. So this gifted 

 teacher, this rare personality whom we honor this evening, never, 

 I firmly believe, stood before an audience (she not infrequently 

 addresses an audience of 3000 boys) or a class, and never conferred 

 with two or three boys or girls (or one, as often), without feeling 

 and showmg far more interest in the boys and girls themselves 

 than in the subject of nature study with plants. 

 ^ It was Rousseau, tlie author of that great educational classic, 

 Emilc, who said, "People do not understand childhood. With 

 the false notions we have of it, the further we go the more we 

 blunder." 



It is sympathetic understanding of children, of adolescent boys 

 and girls, combined with a rich educational experience before com- 

 mg to us, that explains the outstanding success that has marked 

 the work of Miss Shaw during the past twenty-five years. The 



