PUPILS! COURSE OF LECTURES 89 
THE PUPILS’ COURSE OF LECTURES. 
=4,HE second series of lectures to the public-school 
children, the programme of which was published 
in the April number of the JouRNAL, comprised 
thirty-four lectures upon twelve subjects. The 
records show that the total attendance at these 
lectures was more than 20,000 school children from Staten 
Island, Brooklyn and the upper Bronx, as well as from Man- 
hattan. Although the usual number coming from each school 
was from forty to sixty pupils, some schools sent large delega- 
tions, notably P. S. 189, 99th St. and Second Ave., from which 
200 to 400 pupils came to a lecture, and P. 8. 177, Market and 
Monroe Sts., from which 200 to 300 pupils were brought. The 
lectures were not given during school hours, and attendance at 
them was in no wise compulsory, so that, inasmuch as the 
classes were accompanied by their teachers, the large numbers 
of pupils availing themselves of the opportunity to supplement 
their class work indicates not only the interest felt by the children 
in their studies, but also that of the teachers in their classes. 
Although the lectures were primarily designed to supplement 
the classroom work, they undoubtedly have been the indirect 
cause of spreading much general information. Frequently 
teachers with their pupils have arrived early at the Museum and 
have spent an hour or more before the opening of the lecture in 
studying the collections, for instance: the bird groups and the 
series illustrating the protective coloration and mimicry of in- 
sects. On the way to the lecture hall children have caught 
glimpses of exhibits which have aroused their interest to such 
an extent that afterwards they have been seen at the Museum 
on Sundays or holidays accompanied by their parents. 
THE Carnegie Institution has recently published a paper, 
“ The Coral Siderastrea radians and its Postlarval Development,” 
By Dr. J. E. Duerden, Honorary Curator of Ccelenterates. The 
work is based upon observations carried on for four months while 
the author was Curator of the Museum of the Institute of Jamaica, 
and was completed at the American Museum. 
