REPORT OF NATIONAL. MUSEUM, 1923. 9 



Social service students led bj-^ a welfare worker from the Veterans 

 Bureau studied the textile collections under the direction of Mr. F. L. 

 Lewton, curator of textiles, who spoke on that subject to them. Talks 

 on important fibers and on spinning and weaving were likewise given 

 by Mr. Lewton to the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade pupils of a 

 number of the Washington public schools who came in groups accom- 

 panied by their teachers, and by request, a series of three lectures on 

 cotton, wool, silk, linen, and cloth construction and ornamentation 

 was given to several groups of employees handling textiles in one 

 of the large local department stores. 



Many high schools, especially those of New England, include a 

 trip to the national capital as a regular part of their course of train- 

 ing, in some instances the journey replaces the commencement. Each 

 spring finds the Museum halls full of these young people from edu- 

 cational establishments of the small towns and cities from a radius of 

 many hundred miles, often from communities having no local 

 museum. 



Aside from the general educational advantages to be derived from 

 the exhibition collections at all times, even through casual observa- 

 tions by the ordinary visitor, the Museum advances learning by the 

 distribution of its duplicate natural history specimens to high schools 

 and colleges in all parts of tha country. During the year 86 educa- 

 tional establishments were supplied series of carefully labeled speci- 

 mens for teaching purposes. The Museum also freely identifies 

 natural history specimens collected by schools and sent here for de- 

 termination and report. It contributes to elemental or " popular " 

 education by answering accurately and carefully numerous letters 

 of inquiry with or without accompaniment of specimens. 



Its wider appeal through its publications carries the educational 

 influence of the Museum into communities that have no local museum 

 nor the opportunity for visiting Washington and personally bene- 

 fiting by contact with the Museum exhibition halls. In a number 

 of instances its publications have been widely used as reference 

 books in schools and colleges. 



As intimated in the last report the Museum cooperated with the 

 Pennsylvania State Board of Education in supplying photographs 

 and essential data pertaining to mineral industries. It has assisted 

 the State in establishing this year in its public school system a new 

 line of instruction — a course on the mineral resources of the State 

 incorporated in the seventh grade geography courses. This work 

 was materially furthered by the preparation and publication by 

 Mr. Samuel S. Wyer, Associate in Mineral Technology in the 

 Museum, of a book entitled " The Smithsonian Institution's Study 

 of Natural Kesources Applied to Pennsylvania's Eesources," which 

 was distributed about the first of the calendar year. The course on 



