Reports of Field Agents 409 



arranged that the Commissioner and the supervisors, one of whom would be 

 present at each county teachers' institute, would advise bird-study at every 

 institute held in the state. The value of this can be readily seen. 



Considerable correspondence was necessary, with secretaries of county 

 teachers' institutes, in order to insure attention and safe delivery of packages 

 of announcement leaflets and other sample leaflets that I sent in their care 

 to the supervisors at the various points for distribution. This called for over 

 one hundred packages and a heavy toll upon my supplies, but was not, as I 

 have since been informed, one-fourth as much material as the supervisors 

 could have used to advantage. Whatever future course may be followed, 

 and whatever progress may be made in bird-study in Ohio Schools, much 

 credit is due Commissioner Miller and the present Supervisors of Agricul- 

 ture. At the close of the county institutes, one of the supervisors who wrote 

 me said, in part: "We worked hard, and boosted for the birds. Depend 

 upon us for cooperation in any other plans you may have to introduce 

 bird-study." 



As proof of efflciency of the work done in July and August, I have to offer 

 the fact that Junior Audubon Classes were formed and orders sent in for 

 leaflets during the opening week of school in September, and since then the 

 orders have been steadily coming in, and there has been an extensive call for 

 information and sample leaflets. This is putting bird-study into town, village 

 and country schools at a gratifying rate. Our cities, however, are slow to 

 accept the work. City superintendents, I gather, regard bird-study as a kind 

 of popular fad, instead of present and vital knowledge that all children now 

 need. Several senior educators have said to me in substance: "Bird-study is 

 all very well for country children, perhaps, but nothing more than an amusing 

 distraction for the children of our city schools." 



During the nine months that I have served as your Field Agent, there have 

 been 1,130 personal letters written; 900 small packages of announcement 

 and sample leaflets mailed out; 156 Junior Audubon Classes formed, with a 

 total membership of 3,495; 50,000 leaflets have been folded, assembled and 

 made into sets for convenient handling. I have given tliirty "bird talks" 

 before approximately 7,000 hearers. These talks were from twenty-five to 

 forty-five minutes in length, and illustrated with from forty to ninety lan- 

 tern-slides. The talks were always arranged for by appointment and con- 

 sidered more than mere entertainment, with the result that from one to twelve 

 Junior Classes were formed wherever I gave a talk. There were numbers of 

 other instances when I talked "birds" for five or ten minutes in school-rooms, 

 before clubs and classes; of these I kept no record. 



I have been able to get a few newspaper notices and short articles pub- 

 lished in the interest of bird-study, and to have attention, through the news- 

 papers, called to the necessity of feeding the wild birds during the trying times 

 of winter. I also contributed twenty pages of bird-study material to the Ohio 



