State Reports 77 



Connecticut. — The Connecticut Audubon Society is withdtit a doubt 

 one of the best organized societies in the National Association, and has 

 carried its educational work far beyond the point reached by any other 

 society. Mrs. Glover, the secretary, reports: "We have not increased 

 largely in membership this year, but we feel that the school children are 

 being well taught about birds and are encouraged to notice and study them. 

 We will shortly have a small text -book of Connecticut birds gotten up by 

 Mrs. Wright ready for distribution among the teachers of the state. The 

 State Board of Education prints and distributes it. We published our usual 

 Bird Day program. We have purchased 14 new libraries of ten books each 

 for circulation in the schools. We sent a library of 22 books to the St. Louis 

 Exhibition in a case provided by the Board of Education, and these books 

 will make two libraries for use in schools on their return to Connecticut." 



The above report is terse, but it gives to other societies a text of the 

 greatest value in "we feel that the school children are being well taught 

 about birds." A single generation has not yet passed since the Audubon 

 movement started (1883), and we are now reaping the benefit of the early 

 work; how much easier will be the work in two or three decades hence 

 when the school children of today are the men and women who will be 

 conducting Audubon affairs! 



The National Committee earnestly hopes that many more secretaries 

 will be able to report before the end of 1 905 that "the school children are 

 being well taught about birds." 



Delaware. — This is a small state, but there is a great deal of good 

 Audubon work done within its borders. Prof. A. R. Spaid, Superin- 

 tendent of Free Schools in New Castle County, gave a series of fifty-six 

 illustrated nature lectures to over 5,000 people, free to all school children; 

 twenty-one of these talks were on bird subjects. 



Prof. Spaid thinks that, in time, illustrated lectures will become apart of 

 a school course, and he suggests to persons of wealth that the public schools 

 should no longer remain below their dignity. These generous people have 

 showered upon our colleges and universities millions of gold, and have to a 

 very large extent ignored the public schools. While we do not want these 

 schools made charity institutions, we do need gifts of money for special 

 purposes for which Legislatures do not usually appropriate. The interest 

 created by the bird lectures was so great that about 600 new members were 

 added to the Audubon Society. 



The State Ornithologist, Mr. Pennock, has been giving bird lectures to 

 agriculturists, and also preparing and sending out Bulletins under the 

 auspices of the State Board of Agriculture, in the general line of bird 

 protection, by showing the value of some species frequently destroyed 

 wantonly or through ignorance of their value. 



