24 The American Museum of Natural History 



Sherwood and Doctor Fisher; and Professor Duggan was invited as 

 the representative of the College of the City of New York. After the 

 luncheon, an inspection was made of the Department of Public Educa- 

 tion and its facilities for serving the schools. President Somers 

 expressed the opinion that the Board of Education ought not to allow 

 this work to stop and desired a statement of the additional cost of full- 

 time service. By a careful readjustment of duties of the Staff, it was 

 found that full service would cost only an additional $4,100, although 

 the cost of the Department's entire work would be approximately 

 $20,000. Later the Board of Education agreed to provide the $4,100 

 needed, and full service to schools was resumed on March first. 

 This included the Circulating Nature Study Collections, Lectures at 

 the Museum, Lectures in Local Lecture Centers, Lending of Lantern 

 Slides, Education for the Blind, Cooperation with Public Libraries, 

 and Exhibition Hall Instruction for Classes. 



There has been no material change in the character of this work. 



The teaching collections have been furnished to teachers according to 



their requests. Not only have the regular nature 



circulating study sets of birds, insects, woods, minerals, etc., 



nature study been supplied, but frequently special selection of 



collections material has been made for some particular need 



of a school. For example, Indian garments and 



other objects have been lent for use in giving pageants. As usual, 



the collections have been delivered by Museum messengers and the 



schools of the distant Boroughs have been especially well supplied. 



The details of the distribution of the material have been in the hands 



of Mr. Herman A. Sievers, whose faithful and efficient service 



deserves special commendation. During the year, twenty cases with 



glass fronts and sides have been constructed, in which are to be 



placed small habitat groups, or other exhibits illustrating biological 



principles more completely than is practicable with specimens which 



can be handled. These will be added to the circulating series. The 



complete statistics of the Circulating Collections in Public Schools for 



the year are given in Appendix B. 



In accordance with the agreement with the Board of Education, 



full courses of lectures were given during the spring and fall, both 



at the Museum and in the Local Lecture Centers. 



lectures for Several lectures were also given at certain schools, 



school while during Regents' Week, in January and in 



children June, large numbers of students from Morris High, 



Evander Childs, and Washington Irving High 



School attended special lectures at the Museum, which were followed 



by laboratory work in the exhibition halls. The lectures dealt princi- 



