smith] THE SCHOOL MUSEUM 119 



I am confident that each school should plan for its own collection 

 of materials and have some common place in which they and the 

 annual supplies furnished to the schools may be organized and 

 kept. That few schools have any such arrangement is evidence 

 of the inadequacy of our school organization. 



Experience with a sort of school museum for several years 

 has convinced me that great value can come only from a clear 

 understanding of what it should not be, quite as much as of 

 what it should be. I shall therefore discuss briefly two or three 

 items from the former point of view. 



First. The school museum primarily should not be organ- 

 ized as a show place for a collection of materials for public 

 exhibition patterned after public museums or academies of sci- 

 ence. If material is exhibited (a thing which is legitimate in cer- 

 tain directions), that feature should be made very subordinate. 

 In Chicago, for example, let us be content to permit these public 

 institutions which I have mentioned, to continue and push for- 

 ward the very admirable work which they are incidentally trying 

 to do for the schools. Would it not be well indeed to ascertain 

 if it may be possible to incorporate certain features of the help 

 they now afford us still more definitely with the course in nature- 

 study? But let us not make our school museum a little model 

 of these larger institutions. Let us give it a distinct function of 

 its own. Following the efforts of Dr. Eliot and other reformers 

 many years ago, school museums were started in several places 

 in this country. The movement fell by the wayside, because 

 those who acted on the impulse for reform attempted to carry 

 out too many of the features of these larger public institutions. 

 Much of the effort of the individual teachers consisted in chas- 

 ing down scientific names and mounting and arranging specimens 

 brought in by the children. That was a burden impossible to be 

 borne even in that day of the less crowded curriculum. Some of 

 the persons concerned gained a sort of ephemeral renown, but in 

 this way they helped to set back for a generation a reform which is 

 only now being rejuvenated. We want teaching museums, not 

 show rooms. 



Second. The school museum should not be organized and 

 maintained to serve the ends of nature-study and geography 

 only. Into it should be gathered all sorts of material appropriate 

 for use in all of the subjects of study in all of the grades of the 

 school. It is becoming more and more clear to teachers that sub- 

 jects like reading, literature, spelling, history and arithmetic 

 frequently require the supplementary use of material in order 



