SCIENCE 



Friday, April 29, 1910 



CONTENTS 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 

 Botanical Gardens: I. 



Relations of Botanical Gardens to the 



Public: De. N. L. Britton 641 



The Place of Botanical Gardens in Col- 

 legiate Instruction: Peofessob W. F. 



Ganong 644 



A University Botanical Garden: Pbo- 

 FESSOE Duncan S. Johnson 64S 



The Relation of Applied Science to Educa- 

 tion: Peofessoe Cykil G. Hopkins 655 



Attendance of Students at Foreign Universi- 

 ties : Peofessoe Guido H. Maex 659 



Elections to the American Philosophical 

 Society 659 



The George Washington Memorial Building . . 661 



Scientific Notes and News 662 



University and Educational News 665 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



The Planet Mars: Peofessoe C. D. Pee- 

 eine. Kircher and the Germ Theory of 

 Disease: Dr. Wm. A. Riley. Ealtlenierg's 

 Chemistry: Peofessoe Jas. Lewis Howe.. 665 



Scientifio Books: — 



Magnetic Work of the British Antarctic 

 Expedition: De. ,L. A. Baueb. De Mar- 

 tonne's Geographic physique: De. A. E. 

 Oetmann. Eyferth's Einfachste Lehens- 

 formen des Tiers- und Pflanzenreiches : 

 Professor Charles A. Kofoid. Rowe on 

 Habit Formation and the Science of Edu- 

 cation: Professor Edgae James Swift . . 668 



Notes on the Teaching of Zoology and Plans 

 for its improvement : Db. W. J. Baum- 

 gaetner 673 



Special Articles: — 



An Expression for the Bending Moment at 

 any Support of a Continuous Girder for 

 any Number of Equal Spans: Arthur R. 

 Ceathoene 675 



Societies and Academies: — 



The Botanical Society of Washington: W. 

 W. Stockbeegee. The Anthropological 

 Society of Washington: I. M. Casanowicz. 

 The Biological Society of Washington: D. 

 E. Lantz. The Society for Experimental 

 Biology and Medicine: Dr. Eugene L. 

 Opie. Rhode IslaiuZ Section of the Amer- 

 ican Chemical Society: Albert W. Clat- 

 flin 676 



BOTANICAL GARDENS^ 



RELATIONS OF BOTANICAL GARDENS TO THE 



PUBLIC 



Botanical gardens are important factors 

 in public education, and are, at the same 

 time, places for public recreation and en- 

 joyment. They are highly specialized 

 parks in which the plantations are formed 

 and arranged primarily with regard to bot- 

 anical facts and theories. Inasmuch as the 

 great majority of their visitors have little 

 time to spend, the information they carry 

 away is more generally by impressions than 

 by closer observation, although individual 

 plants and groups of plants will often be 

 remembered by casual visitors for long 

 periods of time. Botanical gardens are, 

 therefore, in effect museums of living 

 plants, and the plants, treated as museum 

 objects, suitably labeled, are installed to il- 

 lustrate not only the objects themselves, 

 but their relation to other objects. This 

 museum feature is then a direct and im- 

 mediate function in imparting information 

 to the public. 



The grouping of plants in botanical gar- 

 dens is susceptible of widely different treat- 

 ments, depending upon the character and 

 the area of land available, the expense 

 involved, and the facts and theories selected 

 for illustration ; also in the temperate zones, 

 at least, upon the amount of greenhouse 

 space available ; also on the relative impor- 

 tance given to landscape considerations and 

 upon the areas retained as natural forest, 

 thicket or meadow. Facts and theories 



' A symposium given before Section G, American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, at 

 the Boston meeting, Tuesday, December 28, 1909. 



