NATURE STUDY, IN OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



723 



subject. Many years ago, when I was living in New 

 York City, I remember the large classes of public school 

 children that visited the Aquarium at Battery Place, 

 and the great pains the director of that institution. Doc- 

 tor Townsend, and the late Mr. Spencer, took in demon- 

 strating to those classes the lives of the fishes, and the 

 theory of balanced aquaria. From Mr. Nifenecker's let- 

 ter we learn that every 

 possible advantage is 

 given the children of the 

 public schools of New 

 York City to receive in- 

 struction in nature study, 

 and to supplement that 

 study by "visits to the 

 museums, parks, and oth- 

 er places of interest." 

 There are also well sus- 



am indebted to Mr. F. L. Wiley, Assistant to the Superin- 

 tendent of those schools, and to Miss Amelia Meissner, 

 Curator of the Educational Museum of the St. Louis Pub- 

 lic Schools. Mr. Wiley writes me, among other things, that 

 "the St. Louis Public Schools maintain an educational 

 museum, with delivery service to all the schools. We 

 therefore do not have individual school museums" (May 



31, 1921) ; and Miss Meiss- 

 ner writes, "we like to stress 

 the idea that our object is to 

 bring the museum to the 

 schoolroom rather than have 

 the school child brought to 

 the museum." In the case of 

 non-transportable material, 

 the classes are brought to the 

 museum. The St. Louis De- 

 partment of Instruction sep- 

 arately publishes the "Pub- 





:ained Nature 

 Rooms in t h e 

 public schools of 

 Mew York City ; 

 ind, as a rule, the 

 intelligent Ameri- 

 can part of the 

 population 

 is strongly in fa- 

 vor of maintain- 

 ing the nature 

 study course in 

 the curriculum. 



Judging from 

 the material I 

 have at hand on 

 this subject 

 and it is quite ex- 

 tensive it would 

 appear that the 

 public school sys- 

 tem, in the mat- 

 ter of nature study, is, as organized in the city of St. 

 Louis, far and away ahead of any other city in this coun- 

 try. And for the information on that point ; for the fine 

 photographs sent, and for the literature on the subject, I 



FIG. 10. NATURE STUDY ON THE PACIFIC COAST 



Mr. Carroll De Wilton Scott, of San Diego, California, supplied the four photo- 

 graphs here shown. Upper: Natural History Museum Buildings, Balboa Park, 

 San Diego, Cal. Below, to the left; Second Grade, Franklin School (mostly Mexi- 

 cans), at the Natural History Museum in May, 1921. Right: Fifth Grade, Sher- 

 man School, at the Natural History Museum, May, 1921. Below: Fourth Grade, 

 Francis Parker School, San Diego. Ready to visit the Museum, May, 1920. Mr. 

 Carroll De Wilton Scott in the background. 



information o f 

 teachers and pu- 

 pils ; this is now 

 hi its seventeenth 

 volume, and is 

 replete with all 

 that pertains to 

 the course in na- 

 ture study in the 

 schools in ques- 

 tion ; they also 

 publish a brief on 

 the "Educational 

 Museum of the 

 St. Louis Public 

 Schools," which 

 is by the way, a 

 separate building, 

 of ample propor- 

 tions for the pur- 

 pose outlined. This brief is a most remarkable little 

 print of four pages, and sets forth the great advantage 

 to be gained by having "a museum on wheels." This 

 museum also has a library of 10,000 volumes. Every 



