THE WORK OF A CHILDRESS MUSEUM 163 



rapidly approaching the limit of growth in its present quarters. Its 

 exhibition rooms and library shelves are already occupied and new 

 accessions cannot be placed without overcrowding. 



Requests from teachers for the privilege of bringing larger classes 

 for talks are reluctantly refused because the lecture room is so small. 

 In 1905, the average attendance at the talks was 68, necessitating in 

 some cases the repetition of the talk in order that children might 

 not be disappointed. 



For the lack of funds rather than from failure to see the desir- 

 ability of it, the Children's Museum has no system of lending natural 

 history specimens to schools. Its supply of loan material is limited 

 to a few boxes containing life-histories of insects and duplicate birds 

 retired from exhibition. Teachers are obliged to call for and return 

 borrowed specimens as there is no other means of distributing and 

 collecting. 



Teachers have frequently expressed the wish that their own 

 schools were nearer the museum so that their children could often 

 visit it and the schools of the immediate neighborhood are finding it 

 of piactical help. 



We, who have seen the Children's Museum grow from its infancy, 

 anticipate with much interest a larger museum movement in the 

 future. The demand for the work which a branch museum can do is 

 so clearly proven in the case of the Children's Museum, as to suggest 

 the multiplication of similar centres to serve the different localities of 

 a large and growing city. These under a financially strong Central 

 Museum, with a staff of specialists to provide exhibition and loan 

 material, might easily become centres for the evolution of museum 

 methods in adaptation to local needs, and through supplementary 

 talks in co-operation with the schools, loan specimens and helpful 

 exhibition material, accomplish on a larger and better scale what the 

 Children's Museum is now working for. Some method of taking the 

 museum to the children must be found if the city is to afford all 

 equal privileges in this new line of education. 



The first step toward a new Children's Museum has already been 

 taken in the form of a bill before the State Legislature asking per- 

 mission for the city to erect a new building in place of the present 

 structure at the cost of $150,000. This movement is evidence of 

 the recognized success of the Children's Museum experiment. If 

 with improved equipment the Children's Museum can render 

 broader and more efficient service to the community, perhaps the 

 branch museums may become familiar landmarks in the less fortunate 

 parts of our city. 



