Report of the President 5 1 



teacher as most convenient. Each class receives individual 

 attention and the small group work — there are generally from 

 ten to twelve in a class — gives to each child the opportunity 

 to feel, "see" as the blind call it, every object carefully. 

 Pupils from twelve classes for the blind in New York City and 

 Brooklyn are regular visitors. A complete list of the blind 

 pupils, with their ages, grades and addresses has been made, 

 and, beginning in November and continuing until June 15, 

 1915, at least eight talks a month have been scheduled. 



The nature study collections loaned by the Museum to the 

 public schools, as well as the special collection for the blind — 

 containing a hippopotamus, a giraffe and a camel — have been 

 circulated among the blind classes. Several small elephants 

 have also been cast, and a case containing three typical North 

 American mammals is being planned. The large relief globes, 

 more than two feet in diameter and showing the physical 

 features of the earth, were completed early in the year and 

 have been placed in the hands of eleven of the classes for the 

 blind. It is said that, for the first time, the blind children are 

 enabled to get an adequate idea of the earth as a whole, and 

 that the seeing classes of the public schools as well as the 

 blind are using them with profit. 



During the year three lectures for the blind of New York 

 City and vicinity have been given in the large auditorium of 

 the Museum. On February 20, Mr. Louis Agassiz Fuertes 

 spoke to an audience of 240 on " Our Birds and Their Music," 

 imitating the notes and songs of many of our birds. On Septem- 

 ber 30, Professor A. Christen gave a lecture, at which the 

 attendance was 216, on "The Beauties of Esperanto and Its 

 Value to the Blind," and on November 27 Mr. Ernest Thomp- 

 son Seton talked to 385 blind men and women on "Voices 

 of the Night." After the lectures of Mr. Fuertes and Mr. 

 Seton, many of the birds and animals about which stories had 

 been told were placed in Memorial Hall, and the blind men 

 and women gathered about them and examined them with 

 evident pleasure. 



We desire to express our appreciation of the assistance 

 given by Mr. Lorillard Spencer, Jr., Scout Commissioner of 

 Manhattan, and Mr. W. B. Holcombe, Scout Commissioner 



