SCIENCE 



Friday, May 6, 1910 

 contents 



The American Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science: — 

 The Administration of Botanical Gardens: 

 Peofessoe Wii-liam Tkelease 681 



The Botanic Garden as a Field Museum of 

 Agriculture : Dr. A. F. Blakeslee 685 



The Psychology of Social Consciousness 

 implied in Instruction: Peofessoe Geo. H. 

 Mead 688 



Statistics of Foreign Universities: Peofessoe 

 RuDOUF ToMBO, Je 693 



Scientifio Notes and News 696 



University and Educational News 700 



Discussion and Correspondence: — 



The University of Minnesota and the Car- 

 negi-e Foundation .• X 701 



Scientifio Books: — 



Tourneum's Precis d'Embryologie Eumaine: 

 Peofessoe Leonabd W. Williams. Hod- 

 son's Broad Lines in Science Teaching: 

 Peofessoe C. R. Mann. Pettigrew on De- 

 sign in Nature: Peofessoe T. D. A. Cock- 

 ebell. Bulletin of the American Museum 

 of Natural History: L. P. Geatacap 705 



Botanical Notes: — 



A Very Ancient Seed; Cytological Papers; 

 Summer Laboratories; Papers on Algce: 

 Peofessoe Charles E. Bessey 710 



The Work of the Marine Biological Station 

 at Beaufort, N. C: Henet D. Allee 712 



Special Articles: — 



Preliminary Note on the Life of Glacial 

 Lake, Chicago: Db. Feank G. Bakeb. Col- 

 letotrichum in the United States: C. W. 

 Edoebton 715 



Societies and Academies: — 



The Geological Society of 'Washington: 

 FBANgois E. Matthes. The Society for 

 Experimental Biology and Medicine: De. 

 Eugene L. Opie. The Americwn Chemical 

 Society, New York Section: C. M. Joyce. 

 St. Louis Sectimi and St. Louis Chemical 

 Society: R. NoBBis Shbeve. The Utah 

 Academy of Sciences : A. O. Gabeett .... 718 



MSS. intended for publication and books, etc., Intended for 

 review should be sent to the Editor of Science, Gamson-on- 

 Hudaon, N. Y. 



V 



BOTANICAL GAMDENS^ 

 THE ADMINISTRATION OF BOTANICAL GARDENS 



The common idea of a botanical garden 

 appears to be that of a collection of many- 

 kinds of plants chiefly marked by their lack 

 of beauty and unattractive arrangement. 

 A fair average impression of most botanical 

 gardens would perhaps be that of large 

 collections of living plants, grouped for 

 reasons of economy and convenience, like 

 the bottles on the shelves of a laboratory, 

 with little regard to their individual or 

 collective appearance: variety and some 

 sort of classification are fundamental ele- 

 ments of this mental picture. It is a ques- 

 tion how far this idea may be modified 

 without passing the limits of popular ac- 

 ceptance of any definition that may be 

 given of a botanical garden. 



Such gardens originated in the herb gar- 

 dens of the middle ages, which were almost 

 as natural an outgrowth of the use of 

 simples as a field of wheat or yams was 

 of the use of vegetable food— though later 

 reached. With the teaching of medicine 

 they became demonstration gardens closely 

 limited to the vegetable materia medica. 

 Travel and exploration brought to them the 

 curiosities of the vegetable kingdom. With 

 the development of taxonomy, they have 

 become its exponents, varying into epitomes 

 of local or cosmic plant communities. 

 Morphology and physiology, as these sub- 

 jects progressively claimed attention, have 

 in turn left their imprint on the gardens. 

 Through it all, variety and economical and 



^ A symposium given before Section G, American 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, at 

 the Boston meeting, Tuesday, December 28, 1909. 



