PUBLIC EDUCATION 
THE Department of Public Instruction, although not formally 
established until 1884, began its work in 1881. Its first 
Curator, Professor Albert S. Bickmore, was one of those in- 
strumental in the foundation of the Museum, and it was he who con- 
ceived and planned the system to make the Museum a factor of large 
usefulness by taking an active part in the education of the pupils of 
our public schools. 
In 1880 the Trustees addressed a letter to the Commissioner of 
the Department of Education, offering a course of lectures, delivered 
by Professor Bickmore, in the Museum and at the Museum's expense, 
to the principals and teachers of natural history^ in the Primary 
Schools. The idea met with the hearty approval of the Department 
of Education, and in January, 1881, Professor Bickmore was authorized 
Lectures 
on Zoology, to prepare a course of lectures on zoology. A small workroom on 
the "attic floor" — Number 11, now used by the Department of Orni- 
thology — was fitted up as a lecture hall. In 1881 the first lecture in 
the teachers' course was delivered by Professor Bickmore before a 
class of thirty — all that could be accommodated. This system of 
visual instruction, as it was called, proved so successful that the 
Museum was requested to provide room for more teachers. The 
partition separating an adjoining workroom was removed, which 
allowed the class to be increased to 150. 
Work under A law passcd in 1884 placed the work under the State Department 
thTstlte."'" Public Instruction, with an appropriation of $18,000, "to establish 
and maintain a course of free lectures to the teachers of the common 
schools of New York City and to the teachers of the common schools 
and normal schools throughout the State, who wish to avail themselves 
of this training." The Department of Public Instruction was at this 
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