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THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



The data relates to the occupation and hours 

 of work, whether the person is able to attend 

 afternoon or evening lectures; topics of 

 especial interest; and ability to secure guid- 

 ance. This file will enable us to communi- 

 cate directly with the blind people, and to get 

 an idea of the topics that will be useful to 

 them. 



Two or three evening lectiu-es will be 

 given by notable persons, by explorers and 

 scientists. Admiral Peary has consented to 

 be the first speaker. The audience will pass 

 from his lecture to an examination of relief 

 charts, of the sledge that reached the North 

 Pole, of fur clothing, Eskimo implements and 

 Arctic animals, including the Peary caribou, 

 the most northern of the deer family. The 

 afternoon lectures, of a more informal char- 

 acter, will describe the Panama Canal, life 

 and work among primitive people, and how 

 animals care for their young. The blind 

 children in the public schools have been com- 

 ing to the Museum for informal talks on natu- 

 ral history and other subjects, such as stories 

 told to Indian and Eskimo children; man and 

 his tools — from the river pebble to machin- 

 ery. 



One talk had as its theme, "the struggle 

 for existence" of the mouse, although we 

 called it "Meadow Mice and their Enemies." 

 A mounted specimen of a meadow mouse was 

 passed from hand to hand and we talked 

 about the details of its appearance, its size, 

 teeth and its likeness to other rodents. The 

 meadow mouse destroys the farmer's crops 

 and the farmer kills the mouse whenever he 

 can. Whatever creature feeds upon the 

 mouse is, in so far, the farmer's friend. We 

 "saw" the creatures of the air that prey upon 

 the mouse — the hawk and the owl; the 

 enemies that hunt it in the grass — the cat, 

 skunk, weasel, the silent snake; and learned 

 how each one hunts its prey. To understand 

 how the mouse manages to exist with such a 

 host of enemies, we described its home in the 

 grass, its habits, the young mice and the num- 

 ber of families a mouse-pair can raise in a 

 season. And thus the hour had passed before 

 a single child was ready to go. 



The objects lent to the schools for the 

 blind include the regular school collections 

 and ethnographical specimens selected accord- 

 ing to the request of the teachers. Indian or 

 Eskimo clothing, implements and toys arouse 

 such interest that several of the bUnd children 

 write letters to the Museum during the school 



year to express their pleasure in the collec- 

 tions. The material is selected outside of 

 its interest value, with regard to form, use 

 and durability under use, although the care 

 exercised by the teachers is effective in keep- 

 ing the objects intact. 



Suggestions for related reading often ac- 

 company the loan. These collections or 

 things "seen" at the Museum are made the 

 subjects of compositions, which are occasion- 

 ally sent us by the teachers. Quotations 

 from these essays show the observation and 

 memory of the children, and their facility of 

 expression : 



Woiild you like to know what an idea the 

 camel impressed upon my mind? His head is 

 small in proportion to the rest of its body, his 

 legs are long and its feet are flat so that he can 

 walk over the sand without sinking 



The hippopotamus is a very short fat ani- 

 mal. He has a big fat head and tiny little ears 

 on the top of his head. His eyes are very small 

 and are on the upper part of his head so he can 

 stick his head out of the water and see what is 



going on His mouth is very big. It is like 



a haLf-circle. The corners of his mouth tiu-n up 

 and almost meet his eyes and make you think he 

 is laughing 



Another child writes of the hippopotamus, 

 "He is so fat that he has a big rinkle in his 

 neck." The spelling however is remarkably 

 good for children, rinkle being the only mis- 

 take in half a dozen compositions. 



For the blind children the visits to the 

 Museum will be recognized from now on as 

 part of their school work and will be made 

 during school hours. There are more than 

 one hundred blind children in the elementary 

 schools, too many to deal with satisfactorily 

 at one time. One-half of the classes will 

 come to the Museum on the second Tuesday 

 and the other half on the fourth Tuesday of 

 the month. The same lecture will be re- 

 peated, and will be given a third time to 

 classes from Jersey City and Newark. 



In addition to natural history specimens 

 and ethnographical material lent to the 

 schools, we have prepared several small 

 models of large mammals. There has been a 

 good deal of discussion on the use of small 

 models with blind children, and in Mr. J. A. 

 Charlton Deas's admirable paper on the 

 "Showing of Museums and Art Galleries to 

 the Blind," in a recent number of the Museums 

 Journal of Great Britain, he and his associates 

 deprecate the use of small models of animals. 

 I took his arguments to some trained workers 



