We have just added to our Public Educational 

 Staff Mr. G. Clyde Fisher, a graduate of Johns Hop- 

 kins, with a view to still more active cooperation with 

 the nature study system of the schools. Our Curator 

 of Public Education, Mr. George H. Sherwood, was 

 trained in the public schools of Providence, before 

 coming to his present position. 



It is absolutely essential that nature study should 

 be objective and not from books — in fact, this is the 

 distinctive value of nature study. Our circulating 

 museums, which now reach over one million pupils, 

 are designed to carry as many objects as possible to 

 the schools. The children who come here are also 

 given opportunities of direct objective study on a 

 larger scale. 



At a public hearing of the Committee on Studies and Text- 

 Books on February 18, 1913, Mr. George H. Sherwood, 

 Curator of the Department of Public Education, represented 

 the American Museum and made the following statement of 

 the relations of the Museum to the educational system of the 

 City and its active participation in the Nature Study work: 



The American Museum of Natural History has 

 been from its beginning — thirty-four years ago — a 

 strong advocate of Nature Study, and, with the intro- 

 duction of this subject in the curriculum of the city 

 schools, has placed selections from its wealth of 

 material at the disposal of the teachers. 



One of the chief defects in the present course of 

 nature study in the New York public schools is the 

 lack of provision for supplying the teachers with all 

 the necessary material called for in the Syllabus.* 

 The "Syllabus" refers to a veritable host of speci- 

 mens, but these can be obtained only at the expendi- 

 ture of great energy and ingenuity on the part of the 

 teachers. It is no wonder, then, that when nature 

 study was introduced into the schools, many of the 

 teachers appealed to the Museum, and in this emer- 

 gency the Museum came forward and offered its 

 assistance. 



With the approval of your superintendents, we 

 have developed a system of circulating natural history 



* Course of Study and Syllabuses in Geography, Nature Study and Elementary Science 

 for the Elementary Schools of the City of New York, 1908. 



