9 



our people, and providing for the public in this city an elevating, 

 attractive place of enjoyment and instruction. 



Our thanks are especially due to the State Superintendent of 

 Public Instruction, Hon. Andrew S. Draper, for the important aid 

 and hearty co-operation he has rendered our institution in main- 

 taining and developing our educational work.* 



The increased numbers of our visitors daily has been a marked 

 characteristic of our growth during the past year, more especially 

 on Saturday afternoons and holidays. 



The Board of Estimate and Apportionment has provided an 

 additional amount of $10,000 — available during the year 1889 — 

 on the condition that the Museum be opened on Sundays, or on two 

 evenings of the week, one of which should be Saturday. The 

 Trustees have accepted the proposition, and with the approval of 

 the Department of Public Parks, have decided to adopt the alterna- 

 tive of keeping open until 10 P. M. every Wednesday and Saturday 

 evening, and also on the evenings of all public holidays. 



The large numbers that have availed themselves of this oppor- 

 tunity of frequenting our halls has been a genuine surprise. > 



. *In his opening address to the Commissioners, at their annual meeting, he 

 made the following encouraging statement of the results of the advances made 

 in the instruction developed jointly by the Museum and his Department 

 during the past year, in addition to continuing the work that had previously 

 proved so useful in connection with the State Normal Schools: 



" We have availed ourselves of every facility for making theselnstitutes [of 

 Teachers] aggressive and progressive educational meetings. I need not indi- 

 cate the different specific things which we have introduced into our Institute 

 work in order to make them interesting and valuable, but two of these things 

 I should hardly be justified in entirely ignoring. One of them is the exten- 

 sion of the educational work originally undertaken by this munificent Insti- 

 tution in whose building (the American Museum of Natural History) we are as- 

 sembled this morning, by placing before the teachers an illustrated lecture fully 

 portraying the natural scenery and the public buildings and the greater number 

 of the artificial monuments of the State. It is sometimes thought strange that 

 our teachers in the common rural schools have so little idea of the real gran- 

 deur and greatness of this imperial commonwealth, so little knowledge of the 

 specific things which contribute to that greatness and grandeur. We have 

 been able to place before them, in magnificent form, illustrations which a few 

 years ago would have been considered marvellous — and which, indeed, may 

 be now — which a few years ago it would have been impossible to present to 

 them. We are showing them the mountains and the lakes and the gorges of 

 the Empire State. We are showing them the great railway bridges that are 

 spanning the North and East rivers and the Niagara; and the great public build- 

 ings, the Capitol, and the Normal School buildings, the State prisons, and the 

 asylums, and all the institutions which will endure for generations as monu- 

 ments to the power, the wealth, and the intelligence of this generation. And 

 we are doing it with an effectiveness and acceptability on all sides— that to say 

 the least, is highly gratifying," 



