42 



Botanic Garden to resticl the numbers in classes, thus insuring' 

 more individual attention to pupils, and better educational results 

 generally. 



But the story can be only partially told l>v statistics. Before 

 1910 there was in America only one botanic garden (The New 

 York Botanical Garden, in the Borough of the Bronx) that offered 

 any organized and publicized educational opportunities to the 

 public beyond the maintenance of labeled plantations, outdoors 

 and under glass, and indoor museum exhibits of plants and plant 

 products. We had before us, therefore, the problem of blazing 

 a new trail — ot developing largely de novo a program of popular 

 education based upon plant life, for both children and adults. 



1 he educational results are specially noteworthy in the work 

 with children. This is due. in large measure, to the continuity of 

 interest and attendance. As we have reported at intervals before, 

 it is not uncommon lor both boys and girls to continue their at- 

 tendance at Botanic Garden classes for as long as five and even 

 seven years. This shows, of course, initial interest, and also that 

 a program has been developed that is intrinsically interesting. 

 As a result, may hows and girls have discovered, here at the 

 Botanic Garden, their major intellectual enthusiasm and have 

 gone on through the university to attain advanced degrees, to he- 

 come teachers ot botany in preparatory schools and colleges, or to 

 go into souk' commercial calling —the nursery business, professional 

 gardening, pharmacy, and so on. 



About one halt the cost of our educational work is financed 

 from private funds, but it is our conviction that the comparatively 

 small sums appropriated annually lor this work in the City Tax 

 Budget could not have been invested in anything that would have 

 yielded larger returns. 



In Research 



Botanic Gardens are the depositaries and purveyors of an in- 

 valuable treasure which has resulted from the unceasing inquiries 

 into the nature of the plant world by scores of gifted intellects 

 from before the days ot Aristotle to the present. I refer not 

 (inly to the accumulated " facts" or information about plants, but 

 also to the broad concepts and principles which have been for- 



