February 20, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



183 



given its cooperation. He gave tkree very 

 sufficient reasons in the following: the un- 

 precedented growth of the collections; the 

 actual shortage of funds in the city treasury; 

 and the interruption by the war of building 

 extension through personal subscription of the 

 trustees which was planned in 1913. 



He went on to point out that the whole 

 educational system of New York city and 

 state has suffered from the same causes; that 

 conditions have arisen where we are com- 

 pelled to take a very large and constructive 

 view of the future. The need of the hour as 

 felt in every one's m^ind is Americanization, 

 which can be accomplished only through the 

 thorough training of our youth according to 

 American ideals. The free schools, colleges, 

 libraries, museums, scientifically arranged 

 parks and aquaria, free lectures and free con- 

 certs designed for instruction and inspiration 

 form the structure on which Americanization 

 rests. In this structure, the American Mu- 

 seum has won a vital place. In its school 

 educational work, the museum holds a strong 

 I)osition. In the last five years it has reached 

 5,650,595 children directly and indirectly 

 through its lecture system and traveling 

 museums; it has expended $89,126.08 of its 

 own funds directly on public education, in 

 addition to the $1,538,057 expended on ex- 

 plorations, collections and researches, the re- 

 sults of which ultimately find their way into 

 the school mind. The scope and efBciency of 

 its public educational work is such as to have 

 called forth the enthusiastic admiration of 

 the British Educational Mission on its recent 

 visit, and to be taken as a model for educa- 

 tional development in Great Britain. 



With all this obvious advance, the museum 

 has in certain ways come to a full stop in its 

 educational activities. This is particularly 

 true of exhibition work. In hall after hall 

 the arrangement is less truthful and more 

 misleading than it was twenty years ago, for 

 the collections are jumbled together out of 

 their natural order, giving, in cases entirely 

 erroneous impressions. It is therefore, not a 

 civic luxury, but a paramount educational 

 necessity which demands the enlargement of 



the musemn buildings and the provision of 

 the necessary equipment. The most impor- 

 tant thing for the museum to-day is imme- 

 diate building space and equipment. And the 

 next most important thing is the immediate 

 increase of its general endowment by not less 

 than $2,000,000 in addition to the munificent 

 bequest of Mrs. Russell Sage. 



In exploration and field work but little 

 more activity was possible than in 1918. Eoy 

 C. Andrews continued his work in noi'thern 

 China and Mongolia, and has been eminently 

 successful in securing valuable series of goral, 

 serow and mountain sheep. Paul D. Ruth- 

 ling and Karl P. Schmidt have collected 

 reptiles and amphibians in Mexico and Porto 

 Rico. Henxy E. Crampton has continued his 

 work in the Society Islands; George K 

 Cherrie and Harry Watkins have secured col 

 lections of small mammals and birds in 

 Venezuela and Peru; and Herbert J. Spinden 

 has made archeological collections in Peru, 

 Colombia, Dutch Guiana and Central Amer- 

 ica. In the United States, valuable and 

 unique archeological and ethnological mate- 

 rial was secured in Arizona and New Mexico 

 by Leslie Speir and Earl H. Morris, and a 

 collection of Miocene fossils including a slab 

 containing a nmnber of skeletons of the two- 

 horned Rhinoceros Diceraiherium were ob- 

 tained by Albert Thomas in Nebraska. 



During the year over 600 accessions to the 

 collections were recorded. Some of the more 

 important gifts were: the painting of the 

 eclix)se of the sun in 1918 by H. R. Sutler, 

 presented by Edward D. Adams; a Chinese 

 painting on silk of the last dynastic period, 

 1761, presented by Ogden Mills; a lacquered 

 dog-house from a Chinese imperial palace, 

 from Miss Theodora Wilbour; skin of an 

 albino deer, from Archibald Harrison; a 

 series of bronze objects from Sumatra from 

 Arthur S. Walcott; and a collection of ethno- 

 logical specimens from Zuni, from Mrs. Elsie 

 Clews Parsons. 



Nearly 900,000 people visited the museimi 

 in 1919, exceeding by 175,000 the attendance 

 of 1918. The net gain in membership was 

 615, the total membership now being 5,183. 



