“The endowment fund to establish the Scott Arboretum has been given to Swarthmore College to hold in trust and to use for the encouragement of horticulture in its broadest sense. The founders have wished to make possible a dream of Mr. Scott’s to help horticulture by visual demonstration. They have believed that the dream can be best realized by the planting in a public place of such trees, shrubs, and flowers as can be used by people of average means living in the Philadelphia suburban area.
The original thought of Mr. Scott was to call to the attention of the casual visitors who come there the plants which can be grown outdoors in eastern Pennsylvania. He wished to make it possible for a beginner in gardening to visit Swarthmore and see plants suitable for his own conditions, rather than to see merely a beautiful picture.” As stated in The Arthur Hoyt Scott Horticultural Foundation, a Ten-Year History