35S 



NA TURE 



[August S, 1S95 



" As neirly as it is possible to ascertain, we hive b;;n expending 

 twice as much per individual for public education as lin;»hiid, 

 but as she increases her grants for thil purpjse, our provision 

 must bi enlarged in the same ratio, and espscially oujht we to 

 introduce the latest and most improved methods for imparting 

 instruction. 



"The National Educational Association, at its meeting at 

 Saratt^a in 1S92, appointed a committee, with President Kliot 

 at its head, to suggest improvements in the studies of our 

 secondar)' schools, and in their report those eilucators state 

 their opinion that ' the study of both plants and animals should 

 begin in the lowest grade, or even in the kindergarten, and 

 that such studies, with geography subsequently added, ought to 

 count in an examination for college.' Indeed we find the 

 latter study already in the curriculum of liarxard University. 

 In 1S82, just ten years before President Eliot's committee was j 

 appointed, we b^an to seek to render our Museum of Natural 

 Histor)' in New \'ork City an aid to the instruction given in 

 our public schools, by placing in each of them a small cabinet of 

 the rocks, corals, shells, insects, and birds of our own countr)'. 

 We also organised for the teachers a series of illustrated lectures, 

 describing the collections on exhibition in our halls, and picturing 

 the regions from which they came. Our first audience consisted 

 of twenty-five teachers and three officers of our Board of 

 Education. Last year, under the auspices of the State 

 Superintendent of Public Instruction, we s]X)ke directly at the 

 museum, and indirectly by the repetition of our lectures else- 

 where, to 103.OCO of our educators and other citizens, and now, 

 through a provision made by the last legislature, our visual 

 instruction will be rei>eated in the public schools of every city in 

 our State, and in all the villages having a population of 5000 

 and upward, so that during the coming year we shall reach 

 800.000 pupils, besides large audiences ot adults on the public 

 holidays. The mea.sure of success that h.as attended our labours 

 has been largely <lue, first, to our l)elief that it is the duty and 

 the privilege of every educational institution of every grade to 

 try to render a distinct benefit to each class of the citizens, 

 wherever it may be located, and, secondly, to the illustrative 

 method employed Uased on the maxim that ' the eye is the 

 ro)"al avenue to the mind.' 



'• To the question, what kind of a collection in natural history 

 .should be desired for each of these grades of instruction, we 

 would reply that it shmdd exactly correspond to the curriculum 

 of .study adopted by that grade. A college museum should 

 possess a full .series of the animals, plants, and minerals of the 

 .State in which it is situated, with typical specimens of the orders 

 of these natural kingdoms from other States and other Continents ; 

 and al.so a library that will enable its teachers to keep up with 

 the general progress of their de|>artments. lOven this sintple 

 plan may be made lo absorb more money than most of our 

 colleges are likely to acquire for such purjioses during many 

 generations, on account of the unfortunate tendency in these 

 times for many a frienrl of education to foimd a new institution 

 which may Ijcar his name. 



" In this pre.sence I hardly need to add that every sItuIenL 

 .should Ik: encouraged to improve his leisure hours in taking long 

 walks through all the region surrounding his place of study, in 

 order to make his own observations and his own <leductions u|x>n 

 the physical geography and geology of the pl.aces visited. Mis 

 vacations may in this w.ay liecome ipiite .as important as the .same 

 length of term time. If during these travels he will gather 

 minerals, fos.sils, f»r make a small cabinet »<f Ixilanical specimens 

 or insects, he will not only gain im|>ortant informallon, but will 

 ha*e discovered the tnie mtKle of gaining by healthy exercise in 

 the ojien air that relaxation which is a necessar)' condition to the 

 liest remits in the recitation riM>m : and whatever may be his 

 sul«ei|nent occupation, thankful indeed will he be that he 



■ ' • -irly to learn how to forget the overwhelming 



, and that therefore he is abk- once more lo 

 ire as reslfully as he did in his college ilays. 



" \ university which has courses r»f jKist-grafluate studies 

 aildf'l !■. ilk rt,)|(.j»(.. curriculum may follow the same plan, and 

 al- ins for original research along those lines in 



"' '- may l>e eminent .authorities. However, 



e^ ■ ihal when one enthusia.stic instructor 



di' jilaci-. iliL- new o(TU|>ant of the pro- 



fv- already given his leisure time to some 



one of ihc thousand grnu|>s of the animal kingdom entirely 

 different from those studied by his preilecessor, and the Imiks 



NO. 1345, VO',. 52] 



and specimens he finds already gathered will prove of little v-alue 

 to him for the pursuit of his own fiivourite branch of our science. 



MfSEfMS AS EmCATORS. 



"A museum of natural history developed by a distinct corpora- 

 tion may advance education in two different ways — firstly, by the 

 exhibitions of its collections and by illustrated lectures ; and, 

 secondly, by securing sucli exhaustive series of specimens and 

 the books treating of them as to render it possilile for original 

 research to be carried on in many or most of the orders of the 

 animal kingdom. Such organisations could favo\irably utilise an 

 unlimited amount of funds, and even partly to fulfil tlieir mission 

 must ab.sorb enormous sums. They can, iherefoio, only be 

 created in our great and wealthy cities, and iu them only by a 

 happy and enthusiastic co-ojieration of their .State and Muiiici|wl 

 tkivernmenls, supplemented by large gifts from their wealthiest 

 and most generous citizens. Our museum in Central Park is 

 becoming such an institutitm for instruction and investigation. 

 The city has provided a site of eighteen acres and §2,500,000 for 

 that i>art of the structure already erected and under contract. 

 Our specimens .and books, the gifts of private citizens, ainount 

 to about $2,000,000 mc)re, ami yet we have conipletetl less than 

 one-fifth of our propi>sed etlifice. The .\rt Museum has even a 

 larger property and as comprehensive a plan, and now tile Lenox 

 and .Astor Libraries, and the Tilden gift are happily united, anel 

 together form a third stone in the arch of this central university 

 for the highest culture. So that, while we visit London to 

 admire its group of noble institutions at South Kensington, we 

 are at the same time founding in our new land a similar series on 

 agrealer scale, and erecting buildings and accumulating collections 

 at a rate not witnesscil on the other side of ihesea; but the 

 extensive ground jilan u|M»n which we are buiUiing the Museum 

 of Natural Historj' embodies the views of the late .Sir Richartl 

 Owen, the ablest investigator in our science of the present 

 cmtury. 



" In such a museum the specimens of minerals, rocks, and even 

 fossils may be nearly jierfect in themselves or fairly re]ircseiua- 

 tive of the formations from which they were taken, but ilshoulil 

 be remembered that in the usual mode of exhibition of animals 

 and plants we necessarily lose the charm of their environment. 

 Thus the song-thrush, which in life fills these northern valleys 

 with the magical music of its licpiid notes, when mounted and 

 placed in a ca,se is not only mute but uninteresting. The hum- 

 ming birds, in all their array of brillianl gems, to be known 

 nuisl be seen alive, darting lo and fro amid llie Iragranl and 

 richly-coloured Howers which supply their food in the tropical 

 lands where the stately palm-trees wave their graceful fromls. 

 The albatross, as usually mounted, with its wings tamely folded, 

 hardly suggests the noble bird that skims gleefully over the 

 crests of mountainous waves, while the storms are raging in the 

 * Roaring Forties ' «)f the southern ocean. The chamois can 

 only be appreciated when it is seen aloft on some projecting 

 crag of the .Mps, and the Rocky Mountain goat when, after 

 long climbing, we fiml it surrounded by the splintered peaks of 

 the Selkirks high up on the borders of eternal ice. 



" To remedy these defects such a progressive thinker as Sir 

 William I'lovver wisely proposes an entire change in the present 

 style of taxidermy, and our experience in New VorU has been 

 that our ca.ses of American birds in their native haunts are 

 among the most attractive as well as instructive displays in our 

 halls. In our illustrated lectures we exhibit on one screen the 

 Rocky Mountain sheep, while we picture on another screen 

 beside it the grand mountain of the Holy Cross, where this rare 

 animal formerly roamed. 



" Zoology has attained a prominent place in this country largely 

 through that great investigator and instructor, Prof. Lewis 

 .\gassiz, whose marvellous store of kncjw ledge was equalled only 

 by his devotion to his favourite study. 



" Hut while science shoulil be pursued fiir science's sake, yel we 

 must not utuler-estimate the value of the technical sciences which 

 take the results of original research and transform them so that 

 Ihey may confer an immcdi.ate and practical benefit upon the 

 whole worlil. It is in this great department of modern education 

 — the applied science: — Ihal the .\merican people are pre- 

 eminently successful, and in Ihe coming conlesl for the 

 supremacy among all nations, ours is deslineil lo maintain a 

 commanding place through our untiring indu.stry, inventive 

 genius, and peculiar adaptability lo meet new c< ndilions." 



