negatives of the Bickmore slides our collection is probably 

 the finest in this country. Sufficient progress has now been 

 made in the cataloguing of our slide collections to enable us 

 to undertake, in a limited way, the sending out of slides 

 to the schools. It is especially desirable that the Museum 

 should take up this work, since the State Department ot 

 Education at Albany is not in a position to supply the 

 requests of the New York City teachers. 



The effectiveness of nature study in the public schools 

 of the City to-day is largely dependent upon the enthusiasm 

 of the individual teacher and the accessibility of nature 

 study material. Our present circulating collections are 

 doing important work, inasmuch as they place in the hands 

 of the teachers definite nature study material, but more 

 effective results might be obtained if the teacher could have 

 available a more extensive teaching collection. For this 

 reason it would seem desirable to establish a BRANCH 

 TEACHING MUSEUM in a number of centrally located 

 schools. This could be accomplished if a case, say 8' x 7' x 

 1 '2' was placed in each of the selected schools, and we in- 

 stalled a larger and more comprehensive teaching collection 

 of natural history objects than is possible to send out in our 

 regular circulating collections. The teachers of the district 

 could then draw upon this material as required. The ma- 

 terial in these cases should be changed periodically, perhaps 

 three or four times a year, corresponding to changes in the 

 course of study. The branch teaching museum should con- 

 tain not only representative specimens of the animals that 

 are being studied, but small portable groups illustrating the 

 relations of certain animals to environment. Development 

 along this line will involve considerable expense, for the 

 cases should be uniform and the specimens in first-class 

 condition. The problems of transportation and transfer 

 could be handled by our present force. I feel that it would 

 not be wise, however, to undertake the establishing of such 

 branch museums as outlined above until the whole problem 

 of nature study in the public schools has been considered, 

 in order that it may be properly correlated with the nature 

 study work required in the curriculum. 



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