The Museum and Nature Study in the 
Public Schools 
The Committee on Studies and Text-Books of the Board 
of Education has presented to the Board a report which 
recommends drastic changes in the course of study for the 
elementary schools. The most serious of these changes is 
the recommendation that Nature Study be dropped from the 
curriculum as a separate subject, and that it be taught partly 
in connection with the English work and partly with the 
geography work. 
The attitude of the American Museum of Natural History 
on this question is set forth in a letter which Professor Henry 
Fairfield Osborn, President of the American Museum, sent to 
the Honorable Thomas W. Churchill, President of the Board 
of Education, on February 6, 1913, of which the following is 
an extract: 
As President of the American Museum of Natural 
History, I am deeply interested in the subject of 
Nature Study in the Public Schools, and I trust, in 
connection with the changes which are now under 
consideration by your Board, that the great progress 
that has been made in our city in this important 
division of study will not be arrested through any 
reactionary advice or influence. 
As a careful student of education during the last 
thirty-two years, and as a teacher in Princeton and 
Columbia Universities for thirty years, I have watched 
the development of nature study with great interest. 
It arose, as you know, largely from the influence of 
Agassiz in this country and of Huxley in England, 
and fills a place in the scheme of education which it 
is impossible to fill in any other way. 
The Trustees of this institution for years have 
coéperated with the Board of Education, and a marked 
copy of the Preliminary Report which I have just 
made to the Trustees, together with a copy of our 
special educational number of the Report issued last 
