75 
the nature of the case, this must always remain a prominent and 
valuable phase of botanical instruction by gardens. In the 
early gardens the labels gave only the scientific name of the 
plant, but subsequently there were added the common name, the 
geographic distribution, and the place of the specimen in the 
system of classification—the family to which it belongs. 
So long as no attempt was made to illustrate any phase of 
botany but classification, such labels indicated the limits of in- 
formation one might obtain, but, as a rather modern develop- 
ment, appearing first in this country in the Missouri, Harvard, 
and New York gardens, plantations were organized on other 
bases, such as geographical distribution, relation to environment 
(ecology), modification of parts (morphology), economic use, 
both for food and medicine, plant breeding, and the history of 
botany. Thus the range of information to be obtained from 
labels was greatly extended. But after all, and at best, the 
result was for the most part only information about plants, more 
or less detached and uncorrelated; not botanical education. The 
general public visit a botanic garden for recreation rather than 
information, and while these well- labelled plantings do a real 
service, and meet with a genuine and wide-spread appreciation, 
they leave much to be desired. They would be justified, how- 
ever, from the standpoint of education, if they did no more than 
extend the interest of the public in things botanical, or serve 
to give an added interest in life. 
2. Popular Lectures—As an educational force in botanic 
gardens, popular lectures are only second, in time of develop- 
ment, to the labelling of specimens. They were introduced as 
early as 1545 at the Padua garden. At first they were no doubt 
largely confined to the medicinal properties of plants, illustrated 
by living specimens from the garden and ea ntarin and by 
dried specimens from the herbarium. Later they have been 
extended to all phases of scientific botany, from a early spring 
flowers to botanical exploration and theories of heredity. The 
introduction of the stereopticon has here, as elsewhere, done 
much to increase the interest in such lectures. At the free 
weekly lectures given every Saturday from April to November 
