Note on the American Museum's Worl 

 with the Blind 



THROUGH the .Tonathuii Thorne Me- 

 morial Fund, established in 1910, the 

 American Museum has been enabled 

 to develop greatly the educational work for 

 the blind of New York City which was begun 

 in an experimental way during the previous 

 year. This work has been conducted along 

 the line of public lectures for adults and of 

 classes in the Museum for children. In addi- 

 tion, the schools are provided with Museum 

 specimens of mammals, minerals, birds, and 

 ethnological objects for use in their class 

 work, together with small plaster cast mod- 

 els of these, and also with large relief globes 

 of the world. Blind children in New York 

 City have such limited opportunities for com- 

 ing in contact with natural objects that the 

 use of such material as the Museum aifords 

 is in itself a revelation to them, stimulating 

 the imagination and widening the mental 

 horizon. School work is thus made more in- 

 teresting for both pupil and teacher. The 

 number of totally or partly blind children 

 in the grades in Manhattan, the Bronx, and 

 in the Washington 

 Street School, New- 

 ark, New Jersey, is 

 in the neighborhood 

 of ninety. These 

 children, in classes 

 of from nine to ten, 

 are brought to the 

 American Museum 

 by their teachers, 

 who select the day 

 and hour most con- 

 venient for them- 

 selves. Here the in- 

 dividual needs of 

 each child are met 

 by special instruc- 

 tion, since there is 

 of necessity consid- 

 erable variation in 

 age, intelligence, and 

 degree of blindness. 

 Pupils are allowed 

 to handle the objects 

 used to illustrate the 

 lesson and are en- 

 couraged to ask 

 questions. Talks are 



572 



One "good turn" of the boy scouts of New 

 York City is to act as escorts to the lectures for 

 the blind at the American Museum of Natural 

 History 



given by Museum instructors upon topics 

 selected by the teachers from a list sub- 

 mitted to them at the beginning of the 

 year. The list of topics for the spring of 

 1918 included the following: "The Earth and 

 Neighbor Worlds," "A Journey to Africa,*' 

 "Animals of the Seashore," "Animals which 

 Fly," "Trees, Buds, and Twigs," "Baskets 

 and Pottery of the Indians," and "The Story 

 of the Stone Age." Also a number of talks 

 given last year on similar subjects were 

 repeated by request. The Museum appre- 

 ciates the value set upon the instruction, as 

 evidenced in the regular attendance of the 

 classes and by numerous letters received from 

 the teachers of the blind children. 



Besides the blind children, the number of 

 sightless adults with whom the Museum en- 

 fleavors constantly to keep in touch is about 

 seven hundred. Invitations are sent to all 

 these for the free lectures prepared by the 

 Museum especially for them. Wherever nec- 

 essary carfare to and from the Museum is 

 advanced and boy scouts kindly volunteer 

 to act as guides. 

 The attendance at 

 these lectures is usu- 

 ally about three hun- 

 dred. The animals, 

 liirds, or flowers 

 which form the sub- 

 ject of the evening 

 talk are placed on 

 exhibition in the 

 foyer of the Museum 

 where they may be 

 handled by the au- 

 dience. (See note at 

 the bottom of the op- 

 posite page.) Among 

 speakers at these 

 evening talks to the 

 l)lind have been 

 Messrs. Ernest Har- 

 old Baynes, Louis 

 Agassiz Fuertes, 



Ernest Thompson 

 Seton, Charles Craw- 

 ford Gorst, G. Clyde 

 Fisher, and Admiral 

 Robert E. Peary. — 

 Ann E. Thomas. 



