47 



Educational Activities, 1940 



A program of "popular" education, including "adult educa- 

 tion " and work with children, is still comparatively rare for botanic 

 gardens. Such a program, to include anything scientific or edu- 

 cational based upon plant life, was a part of the plan of develop- 

 ment for the educational work at the Garden from the beginning:. 



"Adult" Education. — The president of the Carnegie Corpora- 

 tion of New York has stated, in a recent annual report, that " lack 

 of adequate opportunities in science remains the outstanding need 

 in adult education." When this work was inaugurated at the 

 Brooklyn Garden there was, in the whole United States, no pro- 

 gram for "adult" education in botany (outside of courses for 

 students enrolled in our colleges and universities), with the excep- 

 tion of the course of free public Saturday afternoon lectures offered 

 by the New York Botanical Garden. 



The need of such opportunities is amply reflected in the response 

 to the courses for adults which the Garden has been offering for 

 near])- thirty years. In several courses it lias been necessary to 

 restrict the registration on account of limitations of space in the 

 classrooms and the instructional greenhouses. In the educational 

 Prospectus for 1940 twenty-live courses were listed for adults. 



Extent of Educational Services. — If we include attendance at 

 the Garden and attendance at extra-mural lectures and classes, we 

 may say that the Botanic Garden's cultural influence has been ex- 

 tended during 1940 to more than two million persons within the 

 Greater New York area. This does not include the large number 

 of persons that make up the radio audiences. 



Registration. — The curator of public instruction, in his appended 

 report, calls special attention to the registration figure of 1,359 

 for adult courses ; this is the largest adult registration in the 

 Garden's history, the largest previous figure being 973 in 1936. 

 The increase was due, in part, to the registration of 125 employees 

 of the Department of Parks in courses in Gardening and in trees 

 and shrubs; of teachers in the course in Nature Studv (350) given 

 by the Department of Elementary Instruction; and of nurses (331) 

 in the course planned specially for them. Nurses' training classes 

 from live hospitals took advantage of this course. 



