44 Report of the President 



encourage attention, a fact that was well expressed by one of 

 the visitors at the Child Welfare Exhibit, a mother with two 

 children, who after glancing at two or three alcoves said, 

 "Come on, children, there's too much to see here." 



It is not enough merely to show objects, not enough even 

 if they are well labeled; they should be so displayed as to 

 attract the visitor. As the writer has said before, if you 

 cannot attract the visitor, you cannot interest him; if you 

 cannot interest him, you cannot impart to him any informa- 

 tion. It matters not how instructive a label may be if it isn't 

 read, and it will not be read if the interest or curiosity of the 

 visitor is not aroused. The educational work of museums 

 differs from that of other institutions in that its courses, so far 

 as the majority is concerned, are purely elective. 



As much sandblasting of windows has been done as possi- 

 ble and some experiments have been made with yellow glass 

 and on a small scale with Crookes' new glass. At the present 

 stage of glass making, the writer is inclined to believe that 

 the best results can be obtained by double windows of ground 

 plus yellow glass, and although he has had no opportunity to 

 try this on a large scale, he believes that the yellow glass 

 will interfere very little with most color values. The above 

 method has been used in front of the exhibit of bacteria and 

 seems to have been successful in stopping the breaking down 

 of these colonies which began shortly after they were put on 

 exhibition. 



Under the direction of Mr. Foulke, the building has been 

 kept in its usual clean and orderly condition, notwithstanding 

 the fact that the number of cleaners has not kept pace with 

 the growth of the building and that at present writing all the 

 halls, save one, are in constant use. That much depends upon 

 the housekeeping of the building is shown by the fact that 

 one of our friends in sending a good-sized check gave as the 

 primary reason for the gift the clean and orderly condition of 

 the exhibition halls. 



The usual care has been given not merely to keeping the 

 equipment of the Museum in good order, but to adding to it, 

 and great credit is due to Messrs. Langham and Beers. It is 

 worth noting that while the power plant has been in constant 



