so Report of the President 



advantages of the Museum to the public schools of the City 



should receive special municipal support. 



The matter of equipment, in the casing and exhibition of 



collections on which upwards of a million dollars have been 



„ . expended, is equally in abeyance, and the devel- 



Equipment r ' , /.-..'„ 



opment of the present exhibition halls can be 



carried forward only in a very limited way during the coming 



year through funds provided by the Trustees, in addition to 



their contributions to maintenance. 



The impression probably prevails that the people of the 



City of New York have been extravagant in their expendi- 



_ . tures for these public educational institutions. 



Comparative _ . r n ., . 



. . t Quite the reverse is the case. Striking com- 

 Municipal . , _ % . ,., 



_ f. panson may be made with the City of Mil- 



Expenditures r , , / , , . 



waukee which expends 22c. per capita on its 



city owned and city managed Public Museum and Library, 

 whereas, according to figures verified by our Bureau of Munici- 

 pal Research, in 1910 the people of the City of New York con- 

 tributed only 17c. per capita to their eight institutions of Natural 

 History, Art, Zoological Park, Aquarium, Botanical Garden, 

 Central Park Menagerie, Brooklyn Institute and Staten Island 

 Museum. 



According to the census of 1910, the City of Pittsburgh 

 leads in its municipal expenditure per capita of 73c. ; the City 

 of Boston follows with a per capita expenditure of 57c. ; Cleve- 

 land, 51c. ; Buffalo with 38c. ; Minneapolis with 37c. The cities 

 of Cincinnati and New York each spend 36c. per capita for 

 their great public educational institutions, including, in the 

 case of New York, the Public Library. 



In fact, no city in the world has public institutions in which 

 so much has been accomplished at so little cost to the munici- 

 pality and to the people per capita, and this because so much 

 has been done through the constant inflow of gifts and con- 

 tributions from citizens. The suggestion may be made, ''Why 

 not include building and maintenance also within the scope 

 of these great gifts ? " Such a step should be deprecated be- 

 cause it would at once take from the people their sense of 

 participation and pride which all may now feel in the public 

 educational system of our city. 



