34 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



ing that much progre.s.s hats ])een made in this work in recent 

 3^ears, many specimen.s «till remain with only temporaiy labels. 

 During the past year but little could be accomplished in this 

 direction, owing to the large demand upon the time of Museum 

 officials in connection with the preparation of exhibits for the 

 Pan-American Exposition, and also the present inadequate 

 facilities for label printing. Attention in this connection is 

 called to paragraphs below on the possible treatment of labels 

 so as to render them not only valuable for scientific classifi- 

 cation, l)ut also instructive and interesting to the public. 



The Secretary has endeavored each year to make some 

 advance in the direction of the Institution's primary purpose 

 of the increase of original knowledge through observation and 

 research by the eminent men who are acting as its immediate 

 curators. What has been done in this way will be found indi- 

 cated in the Museum reports. 



He is at this moment speaking, however, of only a sub- 

 ordinate, though not unimportant, portion of the Museum's 

 work, that of instruction and entertainment, and toward this 

 end he has with personal attention brought together in one of 

 the halls of the Smithsonian building a small collection which 

 has been called ""The Children's Room" (though it appears to 

 interest adults at least as nuich as children), comprising 

 objects of interest rather than of practical instruction. The 

 room itself has been made attractive by a careful choice of 

 color and design in the decoration of the walls and ceilings, 

 embodying illustrations of the life of animals and plants. 



The objects displayed in the room include cages of living 

 birds, aquaria with fishes, and cases filled with those things 

 which interest children even of a larger growth. 



As the Secretary stated in his last report, the classification 

 "is not that of science, but that which is most intelligible to 

 the untrained mind," and is intended for the purpose of 

 exciting the interest and wonder of the 3'outhful visitor, in the 

 ultimate hope that this will stimulate a desire for knowledge 

 in natural history. 



The Secretary takes this occasion to express the hope that 

 this small special collection may have a possible use be3^ond 

 its immediately declared purpose. It is onl}' within the last 



