Famous Givers and Their GiftsBolton, Sarah Knowles
History
Famous Givers and Their Gifts
Bolton, Sarah Knowles
Philanthropists
Four years before the death of Mr. Shaw he endowed a School of Botany as
a department of Washington University, giving improved real estate
yielding over $5,000 annually. He desired "to promote education and
investigation in that science, and in its application to horticulture,
arboriculture, medicine, and the arts, and for the exemplification of
the Divine wisdom and goodness as manifested throughout the vegetable
kingdom."
Dr. Asa Gray had been deeply interested in this movement, and twice
visited St. Louis to consult with Mr. Shaw. By the recommendation of Dr.
Gray, Mr. William Trelease, Professor of Botany in Wisconsin University
at Madison, a graduate of Cornell University, and associated for some
time with Professor Gray in various labors, was made Englemann Professor
in the Henry Shaw School of Botany.
Professor Trelease was also made director of the Missouri Botanical
Garden, and has proved his fitness for the position by his high rank in
scholarship, his contributions to literature, and his devotion to the
work which Mr. Shaw felt satisfaction in committing to his care. His
courtesy as well as ability have won him many friends. Mr. Shaw left by
will various legacies to relatives and institutions, his property,
invested largely in land, having become worth over a million dollars. He
gave to hospitals, several orphan asylums, Old Ladies' Home, Girls'
Industrial Home, Young Men's Christian Association, etc., but by far the
larger part to his beloved garden. He wished it to be open every day of
the week to the public, except on Sundays and holidays, the first Sunday
in June and the first Sunday in September being exceptions to the rule.
When the garden was opened the first Sunday of June, 1895, there were
20,159 visitors, and in September, though showery, 15,500.
Mr. Shaw bequeathed $1,000 annually for a banquet to the trustees of the
garden, and literary and scientific men whom they choose to invite, thus
to spread abroad the knowledge of the useful work the garden and schools
of botany are doing; also $400 for a banquet to the gardeners of the
institution, with the florists, nurserymen, and market-gardeners of St.
Louis and vicinity. Each year $500 is to be used in premiums at
flower-shows, and $200 for an annual sermon "on the wisdom and goodness
of God as shown in the growth of flowers, fruits, and other products of
the vegetable kingdom."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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