18 
course, many visitors come to a botanic garden, just as they go to 
a museum, primarily for passive recreation—to enjoy its beauty, 
to withdraw from the noise and confusion of the city. No ex- 
perienced botanic garden administrator could ever harbor any il- 
lusions about that. Nor would he wish to. It is a laudable aim, 
and the Botanic Gare 
fy 
en here serves a very useful purpose. But, 
as with a museum, recreation is not the primary aim of the botanic 
garden, and experience shows that multitudes do come for a pur- 
pose that rarely takes them to a park, namely, to learn something 
about plants and horticulture ; and, like a museum, a botanic garden 
should be planned and administered chiefly with a view to serving 
the latter group. 
But when we are less largely pedagogues and more largely human 
beings, we recognize the fact a it is as important to be happy 
as to be learned. In The Hianan Situation, which one reviewer 
has called “perhaps the most important book of its kind which 
the twentieth century has yet produced,” the author, W. MacNeil 
Dixon, says: “I am less enamored of truth than of beauty. If I 
could spend the course of everlasting time in a paradise of varied 
loveliness, I do not fancy my felicity would be greatly impaired 
if the last secret of the universe were withheld from me.” 
And so, while the primary aim of a botanic garden is educa- 
tional, we should minister not only to those who come to learn the 
Latin name of the Lilac, or what plant family comes between the 
suttercups and the Roses, or the latest variety of Iris, but also to 
those who come to seek only happiness amidst beauty. And thus 
becomes a fundamental aim to make the Botanic Garden as 
beautiful as possible. The gift recorded below is a major con- 
tribution to the beauty of the grounds. 
an 
S. 
THe DEAN CLAY OsBOoRNE MEMORIAL 
The preceding Annual Report recorded the generous gift of 
Mrs. Sade Elisabeth Osborne, [¢xecutrix, a member of our Board 
of Trustees, of the architectural features (fountain, water basins, 
seats, and columns) at the north and south ends of the Long 
Green, in the Horticultural Section of the Garden, lying between 
the Brooklyn Museum site on the cast and Mt. Prospect Park on 
