CHILDHEX'S Ml'SEUM AS AN EDUCATOR 



375 



or the family nurse. Year by year they have returned to the museum 

 attracted by new features of the work adapted to their growing intel- 

 lect ual needs. 



Two years ago, in response to an expressed demand from the boys, 

 tbe museum began a course of lectures in elementary physics, and in 

 connection therewith invited those interested to come to the museum 

 on certain afternoons to experiment individually with favorite pieces 

 of apparatus. The boys found the utmost pleasure in the liberty thus 

 granted — they experimented under the guidance of a member of the 

 museum staff, they read library books in connection with their experi- 

 ments and within a few months had set up a wireless telegraph station. 

 The original work of those boys would be a credit to any institution, 

 for thev applied themselves regularly and diligently until they had 



High School Boys attaching wires to Pole placed on the cupola of the Children's Mu- 

 seum Building foi Wireless Telegraphy. 



learned to send and receive wireless messages; meanwhile, the experi- 

 ence of placing the station and keeping it in working order had fitted 

 them to take charge of other stations. Early this summer, when the 

 schools closed, three of these " boys " received offers of remunerative 

 positions with one of the commercial companies to take charge of 

 wireless stations on board of ocean-going steamships — to South 

 America, Panama, West Indies, Bermudas, Key West and other places 

 of interest along the Atlantic seaboard. One of the boys, who had 

 learned to collect and mount insects when he came to the museum as 

 a primary lad, made a very creditable collection of tropical insects 

 which he brought to the museum, carefully preserved and labeled with 

 interesting data. 



