48 Report of the President 



The number of lantern slides lent to the public schools and 



other educational institutions has increased from 11,929 in 



191 5 to 38,912 in 1916, an increase of more than 



Summary of 22 ^ p er cen t while the number of public schools 



Statistics , . ' , ,-', 1 • 1 r 



borrowing lantern slides has increased from 35 m 

 191 5 to 63 in 1916, an increase of 80 per cent. 



In 1916, the Lectures to Pupils of Public Schools, given in 

 the Museum, numbered 76. The total attendance was 44,398. 

 In the Local Lecture Centers, 38 lectures were given by mem- 

 bers of the Museum staff, with a total attendance of 37,400. 

 The grand total of attendance at all the 114 Lectures for School 

 Children was 81,798. 



Special Lectures for Teachers were given during Institute 

 Week and at various other times during the year. The total 

 attendance was 5,632. 



In 19 1 6, 704 Nature Study Collections were in circulation in 

 439 schools and reached 1,118,322 children. 



The Circulating Collections for Libraries have been used by 

 12 of the Branch Libraries and have been studied by 31,829 

 children and 1,505 adults. 



The Lectures for the Blind have been attended by the pupils 

 from 9 of the public schools; the two lectures for the adult 

 blind by 439 persons. 



The Reference Collection of Negatives and Photographs has 

 been increased by 12,616 negatives and 15,030 photographs, 

 the total reference file now numbering 43,311 negatives and 

 60,690 photographs. 



Under a special grant from the Board of Education, it has 



been possible to place our unique collection of lantern slides, 



which now numbers more than 20,000, at the 



Circulation of disposal of teachers for class-room use. Circu- 

 Lantern Slides r . . ■ ; 



lars of information, catalogues of the slides and 



lecture manuscripts have been prepared and distributed to the 



teachers. As a further aid to teachers, ten complete lectures 



have been prepared on subjects taken from the syllabus of 



study issued by the Board of Education of the City of New 



York. These prepared lectures are in great demand, and it is 



planned to add others to the series as soon as possible. This 



