PAPERS PRESENTED AT GENERAL SESSIONS 107 



THE MUSEUM, THE OEIGIXAL EXPONENT OF 

 ^^SUAL EDUCATION* 



Feaxk C. Baker, Cueatoe, Museum of Natueal History, 

 UxnERsiTY OF Illinois 



We hear a great deal in these days about the vahie of 

 visual education, and a society has been organized for the 

 promotion of this method of teaching. This is indeed 

 one of natures most effective methods of teaching her 

 children the laws of the universe. It is said that we ac- 

 quire much more infonnation through the eye than 

 through any other sense organ of the body. One often 

 hears the expression "seein is believin," which ex- 

 presses this truth in a homely way. 



The museums of science and art have been for many 

 years pioneers in the field of visual education, bringing 

 to the public, more or less imperfectly in the earlier years, 

 the facts of Science and the beauties of Art. The muse- 

 um is often called the "peoples university," and it is 

 quite true that th-e great majority of the population of 

 our large cities acquire their only knowledge of the great 

 world about them by visits to the museums, art galleries, 

 and zoological gardens, where the fowls of the air, the 

 beasts of the field, and the fishes of the sea, past and 

 present, are gathered together in such an assemblage as 

 Noah never dreamed of in his day and generation. 



The value of the museum as an efficient aid in educa- 

 tional work is fully realized by but few educators. Even 

 in many of the large cities there is little real co-operation 

 between the local museum and the educational system, 

 and this is by no means entirely the fault of the museum 

 administrators. Visual education seems to center about 

 pictures, lantern slides, and moving pictures, and the aid 

 that may be rendered by the museum exhibits is, in the 

 main, unthought of. Perhaps many of our museums are 

 to be held responsible for this condition, their exhibits 

 being so often entirely useless to the teacher because of 

 faulty installation, of value to the systematic student, 



* Contribution from Museum of >*atural History, University of Illi- 

 nois, Xo. 25. 



