17 
The resultant problem for scientific and educational institutions 
is to adjust themselves for the time being as best they can, in the 
hope that support which has hitherto been available in the form 
of generous annual gifts, and which has been gradually fading 
away chiefly because of taxation, may in some measure, at least, 
be replaced by bequests, and by a substantial increase in the num- 
ber of smaller contributions. 
And while gifts of private funds have been falling off because 
of the mounting burden of taxation, governmental agencies, fed- 
eral, state, and municipal, have been reducing their annual tax- 
budget appropriations for scientific and educational institutions. 
All this is now a truism, but it needs to be clearly in mind when 
estimating the present status and current accomplishments of these 
institutions. 
WHAT IS A BoTANIC GARDEN ? 
There is an old story of an evangelical preacher who based his 
sermons all one winter on the same text because, he said, he had 
never found any gospel messages so much needed as those which 
grew out of that text. An experience of more than thirty years 
in botanic garden administration has emphasized to the writer the 
perennial necessity of interpreting to the public just what a botanic 
garden is. 
One never thinks of a museum as a place to do something; he 
goes primarily to see something; it is the constant hope of the 
director and staff that he comes to learn something. Of course, 
if he does not derive pleasure from his visit the museum will have 
measurably failed in its purpose as a museum. It is essentially 
for education. 
So also with the plantations of a botanic garden. They may, 
superficially, look like a park. Within certain limitations the 
“garden” may be used as a park—as a place for passive recrea- 
tion. But that is not primarily its purpose. If it were, the whole 
plan and planting would be different than they are. The planta- 
tions of a botanic garden are essentially an outdoor museum. 
a? 
They are intended primarily to serve an educational end. They 
are laid out with that object in view, and must be so administered 
if the garden is to justify its name and its very existence. Of 
