PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF 



MUSEUMS 



One of the most interesting accounts of museum work in this 

 country and Europe has recently been published by the American 

 Association of Museums as volume VIII of its Proceedings. 

 This Association is organized for the purpose of promoting the 

 general welfare of museums and has had its headquarters at the 

 Charleston Museum for the past eight years. The volume just 

 issued contains the papers and discussions presented at the Mil- 

 waukee-Chicago meeting last May. These cover an unusually 

 broad field, and contain much matter of general interest. 



The use of museum objects for instruction in the history of 

 civilization was treated by three papers giving the results of a 

 concerted experiment of the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, the Children's Museum of Brooklyn, the Children's Mu- 

 seum of Boston, and the Worcester Art Museum. All of these 

 institutions have carried on during the year 1913-14 special edu- 

 cational work along lines laid out by Miss Anna D. Slocum of 

 Jamaica Plain and a special committee of the Woman's Educa- 

 tional Association of Boston. The essential idea underlying this 

 experiment is the feeling that children in the elementary grades 

 need to appreciate more fully the early beginnings of civilization 

 and their relation to modern conditions. To develop this idea 

 definite work was laid out involving the study of the implements 

 and utensils of primitive peoples, and tracing in a broad way 

 the development of modern civilization from these humble be- 

 ginnings. An effort was made to bring children into contact 

 with and appreciation of the material life (food, housing, cloth- 

 ing, means of existence), psychic life (games, recreation, fine 

 arts, religion, myths, science), and social life (home life, war and 

 commerce, social organization, international organization) of 

 primitive peoples. 



The Children's Museum of Brooklyn began with the geology 

 of Long Island as showing how the land was prepared for the 



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