44 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



SCHOOL CHILDREN AT THE TUBERCULOSIS EXHIBITION. 



THE two photographs on the opposite page show Hnes of school 

 cliildren entering the north and south entrances of the Museum. 

 Between January 4 and 15 (ten school days) the Museum 

 received within its doors six thousand children daily. Ushered, a thou- 

 sand at a time, into the auditorium, they were given facts concerning 

 tuberculosis and personal hygiene preventing it, and directions for study 

 of the International Tuberculosis Exhibition. When dismissed from the 

 auditorium, giving place to a second set of a thousand, they were guided 

 through the exhibition, to watch the light that went out everv two minutes 

 thirty-six seconds showing how often someone dies of tuberculosis in the 

 United States, to see dark, dirty rooms contrasted with light and clean 

 ones, to examine many inviting tents for out-of-door living — one very 

 amusing to them because it allowed a person to sleep with his body in the 

 house and his head out of the window. Then from the exhibition the 

 long lines filed into the Bird Group Halls and on to other parts of the 

 Museum. There can be no doubt that the suspension of their school 

 work and the unusual expedition, combinetl with the serious force of the 

 impression received after reaching the Museum, brought before them 

 with unwonted importance not only the social evil, tuberculosis, but 

 also many matters of personal cleanliness and home sanitation. 



* * -J^- 

 The two weeks' educative work above referred to illustrates one of 

 the large ways in which the Museum serves the people above and 

 beyond its more specific work in science. That the Museum is prac- 

 ticable for direct use in lesser ways also is continually demonstrated. 

 Recently incjuiry came for a most resonant wood to be used in the 

 construction of violins. Tests were made in the Forestry Hall, and 

 Douglas spruce was chosen after opportunity for examination of five 

 hundred North American woods. Later another incjuirer sought wood 

 absolutely non-resonant for use at the heart of a soundless typewriter. 

 His tests in the Forestry Hall resulted in the choice of palmetto for his 

 purpose. Another instance concerns Peruvian mummy cloths. Prob- 

 ably more than a thousand art students have visited the Museum within 

 the past six years to copy patterns of these cloths or to study their color- 

 ing. Many of these students have become successful designers, and 

 as a result numbers of our modern wall papers, rugs and other house- 



