18 Report of the President 



funds. It means representation of the many without taxation, 

 but with a dominant voice in expenditure. 



At a recent conference with ex-Governor Alfred E. Smith 

 he declared himself in favor of a more even distribution of 

 taxation, provided this could be accomplished without the cre- 

 ation of a new tax commission, which would be expensive and 

 cumbersome. Governor Nathan L. Miller has declared himself 

 for the simplification of our mode of collecting taxes, and he 

 should unite with this a provision for the even distribution of 

 taxes among all those who enjoy the blessings of taxation, 

 whether property holders or not. 



This discussion would seem to be out of place in a report 

 from a museum of natural history, but the museum has to take 

 its part in a nation-wide if not a world-wide movement to re- 

 store the primacy of our educational institutions lost through 

 failure to give them adequate financial support. 



NINE NEW BUILDING SECTIONS NEEDED 



By far the most important financial need in the immediate 

 future of this Museum is money for building. It is fifteen 

 years since the building was enlarged. It is nine years since 

 two new buildings were unanimously approved by the govern- 

 ment of the City of New York and an initial appropriation 

 made and then construction suspended owing to the war. As 

 pointed out clearly in the Fifty-first Annual Report, the pres- 

 ent building, consisting of eight sections, is about half as large 

 as we need; more serious than this is the untruthful arrange- 

 ment of our collections and the false natural history which we 

 are teaching because of the necessity of crowding together 

 exhibitions, collections and subjects which do not belong to- 

 gether and which, in fact, should be very clearly separated. 



During the past year the SCHOOL SERVICE BUILDING 

 has been projected to occupy the SOUTHWEST COURT 

 and to meet the needs of the rapidly increasing number of 

 classes of school children who are coming to the Museum, not 

 only from Greater New York but from surrounding cities. 1 



1 This statement is borne out by the actual percentages of increase, which 

 show great advance in the year 1920 over the year 1919. 



