BROOKLYN BOTANIC GARDEN RECORD 
VOL. XXIX APRIL, 1940 
TWENTY-NINTH ANNUAL REPORT 
Ol awake 
BiIN@ GIG YN 3 © les 3G AR BN 
1939. 
REPORM Of Hit, DIRBCLOR: 
To THE BoTANIC GARDEN GOVERNING COMMITTEE: 
I have the honor to present herewith the Twenty-Ninth Annual 
Report of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for the calendar year 1939 
It would seem as though every scientific and educational insti- 
tution in the United States of America should begin its annual 
report for 1939 with a prayer of thanksgiving that it is located 
where it is. In contrast to the conditions in some other lands, 
we have been free to pursue a program of scientific investigation 
and education without interference from governmental ignorance 
or bigotry, while we have witnessed elsewhere the appearance of 
such irrelevant classifications as “ Soviet ecology,” “ German math- 
ematics,” “ Aryan physics,” and other misleading designations for 
the different branches of science. 
In the Journal for Ecology and Biocenology, published by the 
Leningrad State University, we read that, “ The Revolution has 
reconstructed our science in general and biology in particular.” 
“Soviet ecology,’ we are told, “ 
” 
is of increasing importance for 
Socialist Construction.” In Germany a new mathematical journal 
named Deutsche Mathematik, is devoted to nationalism, versus 
internationalism, in mathematics. ‘‘ German physics?,” asks Le- 
nard, a Nobel Prize laureate, in the first volume of a great work 
i) 
