THE BLIND L\ THE AMERICAN MUSEUM 



41 



or the blind, with a wide experience, and we 

 carried the discussion further than it had gone 

 in England, and agreed that the small model 

 should not be used alone, but that it is valu- 

 able as supplementary to the examination 

 of life-size mounted specimens of large mam- 

 mals. 



The child forms a better conception of the 

 animal as a whole, and of the proportion of its 

 parts from the model which he 

 can hold in his hands. His ad- 

 justment to the conception of 

 size may be trained, as is that 

 of the sighted child when regard- 

 ing maps, pictures or toys. The 

 danger however of the first im- 

 pression fixing an erroneous con- 

 ception of size and texture is per- 

 haps greater for the blind than 

 for the normal child whose ad- 

 justments are more rapid and 

 constant. We propose therefore, 

 both the life-size mount and the 

 small model. The child shall 

 first feel the actual speci- 

 men, shall realize that it is 

 large, hairy and so forth; then 

 he shall take the model and 

 study the appearance of the 

 animal as a whole, and gain a 

 more definite conception of its 

 proportions. He may then study 

 the mounted animal in detail. 



The blind children of the city 

 are pitiably lacking in "back- 

 ground." The most common 

 objects are unknown to them; 

 teachers find that the appear- 

 ance of domestic animals, ex- 

 cept perhaps the cat or dog, 

 is outside of their knowledge. 

 The visit to the Museum 

 means more than an hour's 

 instruction, more than the mere 

 viewing of new objects, it means 

 a change of environment, a 

 stimulation of intellectual ex- 

 pression, the appreciation of the 

 socializing forces which go to pro- 



duce public institutions for the distribution 

 of knowledge and the betterment of life. 



A blind man epitomized the labor and 

 purpose of science when he laid his hand 

 on the enormous meteorite "Ahnighito" 

 brought from far Greenland, and exclaimed, 

 "And they took all that trouble to bring 

 this big thing down hero so we'd know 

 there are such things." 



The work with the blind was made possible through the be- 

 quest of Phebe Anna Thorne and gifts in her name by her brothers, 

 Jonathan and Samuel Thorne 



