Lending of Lantern Slides 21 



Chairman Wilsey called on President Osborn and made an 

 examination of the educational work the Museum was already doing 

 and of the plans for extending it. On the same day President Osborn 

 had a conference with President Churchill, who endorsed the plans 

 and gave assurance of his cordial cooperation. 



From the beginning the Curator was in consultation with Super- 

 intendent Maxwell and Associate Superintendent Straubenmuller, 

 both of whom gave much practical assistance in the formulation of 

 the plans for the proposed extension. 



After careful study of the problems involved, plans for the 

 extension work of the American Museum were recommended to the 

 Committees of the Trustees and of the Board of Education and 

 application was made for an appropriation of $10,000 for carrying 

 them out. These plans provided for: 



1. The opening of ten local lecture centers and the delivery by 

 members of the Museum staff of eighteen lectures in each 

 center during the school year, the lectures to be mainly on 

 geographical, historical and industrial subjects, and fully 

 illustrated. 



2. The inauguration of a system of lending slides, which would 

 place at the disposal of the teachers of the public schools, for 

 use in their classrooms, the extensive series of lantern slides 

 belonging to the Museum. 



3. The establishment of a branch museum in the Washington 

 Irving High School which would be a local museum for the 

 lower east side of the City. 



The plans for the proposed extension received the unanimous 

 support of the Committee of the Board of Education, and on its 

 recommendation an application for $10,000 to put it into operation 

 was incorporated in its budget request for 1915. In spite of this 

 action of the Board of Education, the budget examiners for the Board 

 of Estimate and Apportionment struck out the provisions for the 

 Local Lecture Centers and the Branch Teaching Museum, and 

 accepted only one feature of the proposed extension, namely, the lend- 

 ing of lantern slides. For this work an appropriation of $2,000 was 

 allotted in the 1915 budget of the Board of Education. 



The failure of the City to provide for the entire program of the 



proposed extension was a keen disappointment. Nevertheless, the 



staff of the Department of Public Education took 



lantern up at once the problems of inaugurating the system 



slides for of lending slides. Miss Kathryn I. Upson, a 



teachers graduate of Vassar College, was appointed Slide 



Librarian. She gave her immediate attention to 



completing the catalogue of the slides and to the preparation of refer- 



