meissner] EDUCATIONAL MUSEUM OF ST. LOUIS SCHOOLS 115 



EXTRACT FROM EDUCATIONAL MUSEUM REPORT 



School Year Books Delivered Collections Delivered 



1905-1906 o 5,01 1 



1906-1907 300 1 1,830 



1907-1908 2,748 16,690 



1908-1909 3,368 19,153 



1909-1910 4.365 23,152 



However, the best evidence of the steady growth of the 

 Educational Museum is. the fact that the 191 1 catalogue, just 

 issued, lists 1,742 individual collections as compared with 366 

 collections listed in the 1906 issue. Including all duplicate col- 

 lections made up and in process of being made up, the museum 

 now owns some 6,800 collections and 7,000 books ready for dis- 

 tribution to the schools. 



In addition to this constantly traveling material, the museum 

 maintains a reading room in connection with its library depart- 

 ment, and a display room or "study hall" in connection with its 

 museum department. 



In this reading room are to be found, in addition to the seven 

 thousand volume regular library, all recent and many earlier 

 United States Government Reports, and thirty-two of the best 

 educational magazines, indexed since 1906, thus making them 

 readily accessible to the reader. All of these magazines and 

 Government Reports, except the current number, may be ordered 

 by wagon delivery just as the other books and museum material 

 are ordered. 



In the display room complete sample collections of all travel- 

 ing museum material are displayed in readily accessible cases, so 

 that the teacher may gain a better acquaintance with the material 

 available than the catalogue alone could give her. In addition to 

 these samples of the traveling collections, the display room also 

 contains much valuable material which it would be impractical 

 to transport to the schools. For the study of such material, 

 classes of pupils in charge of their teachers are permitted to 

 visit this room from time to time. 



The effectiveness of the delivery system from one center, 

 instead of supplying each school permanently with a set of 

 museum collections, is shown in the diversity of material called 

 for by the various schools. If all were supplied in like measure, 

 much material would necessarily lie idle in those schools which, 

 under the present favorable conditions of supply, order but 



