BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES 9 



lectures, and met with great and immediate success. Although 

 attendance was not required, so many teachers applied for dates 

 that in this course, as can be seen in the appendix, thirty five 

 separate lectures were given, to an attendance Of nearly 5000 chil- 

 dren. These talks were followed by a series on birds and bees to 

 the seventh grade, thirty lectures in all, to an attendance of 6700. 



During the summer arrangements were perfected to make this 

 work an integral part of the public school requirements. The De- 

 partment of Education decided to make the attendance upon these 

 talks compulsory on those classes included in the grammar grades, 

 and the Society secured the services of Dr. Cummings for the 

 following year. He has since had charge of this work, giving all 

 the talks and preparing all the material u>ed in illustrating. 

 Regular schedules were prepared by the Department of Education, 

 and sent to all the principals, notifying them upon what day to 

 send their classes, and the Society also sends to each principal a 

 card announcing the lecture so that any alterations or changes in 

 the schedule can be arranged for. At the end of each course 

 supplementary lectures are given to accomodate those schools 

 which for any reason have been unable to come at the scheduled 

 date. As a convenience in keeping the records of each course, 

 each teacher is expected to register at the time of the talk her 

 name, the school she represents and the number of boys and girls 

 she has with her. 



A great part of the work of the Secretary is taken up in pre- 

 paring the material used in illustrating the talks. Lantern slides 

 are used freely. To facilitate the manufacture of these pictures, 

 a dark room was fitted up, and materials secured, and we now 

 have available a considerable number of slides, and more are being 

 constantly added. Within the year nearly six hundred slides have 

 been made here in the museum, and the files include over a thou- 

 sand negatives that can be made up on short notice if needed. 

 (For a complete list of slides on hand, see Appendix D). A trip 

 to Jamaica during the month of April yielded nearly 500 neg- 

 atives, (vide Appendix B), and a visit to the copper country of 

 Lake Superior furnished some valuable material (Appendix C). 



Series I. was illustrated by a fine collection of relics and 

 material borrowed, as well as that in the cases of the Museum. 

 The boys were particularly attracted by the exhibit of guns and 

 weapons, while the girls showed more enthusiasm over the spin- 

 ning wheels and articles of housewifery. This series was repeated 



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