File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17975795349).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo18amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Note on the American Museum's Worl with the Blind THROUGH the .Tonathuii Thorne Me- morial Fund, established in 1910, the American Museum has been enabled to develop greatly the educational work for the blind of New York City which was begun in an experimental way during the previous year. This work has been conducted along the line of public lectures for adults and of classes in the Museum for children. In addi- tion, the schools are provided with Museum specimens of mammals, minerals, birds, and ethnological objects for use in their class work, together with small plaster cast mod- els of these, and also with large relief globes of the world. Blind children in New York City have such limited opportunities for com- ing in contact with natural objects that the use of such material as the Museum aifords is in itself a revelation to them, stimulating the imagination and widening the mental horizon. School work is thus made more in- teresting for both pupil and teacher. The number of totally or partly blind children in the grades in Manhattan, the Bronx, and in the Washington Street School, New- ark, New Jersey, is in the neighborhood of ninety. These children, in classes of from nine to ten, are brought to the American Museum by their teachers, who select the day and hour most con- venient for them- selves. Here the in- dividual needs of each child are met by special instruc- tion, since there is of necessity consid- erable variation in age, intelligence, and degree of blindness. Pupils are allowed to handle the objects used to illustrate the lesson and are en- couraged to ask questions. Talks are 572
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One "good turn" of the boy scouts of New York City is to act as escorts to the lectures for the blind at the American Museum of Natural History given by Museum instructors upon topics selected by the teachers from a list sub- mitted to them at the beginning of the year. The list of topics for the spring of 1918 included the following: "The Earth and Neighbor Worlds," "A Journey to Africa,*' "Animals of the Seashore," "Animals which Fly," "Trees, Buds, and Twigs," "Baskets and Pottery of the Indians," and "The Story of the Stone Age." Also a number of talks given last year on similar subjects were repeated by request. The Museum appre- ciates the value set upon the instruction, as evidenced in the regular attendance of the classes and by numerous letters received from the teachers of the blind children. Besides the blind children, the number of sightless adults with whom the Museum en- fleavors constantly to keep in touch is about seven hundred. Invitations are sent to all these for the free lectures prepared by the Museum especially for them. Wherever nec- essary carfare to and from the Museum is advanced and boy scouts kindly volunteer to act as guides. The attendance at these lectures is usu- ally about three hun- dred. The animals, liirds, or flowers which form the sub- ject of the evening talk are placed on exhibition in the foyer of the Museum where they may be handled by the au- dience. (See note at the bottom of the op- posite page.) Among speakers at these evening talks to the l)lind have been Messrs. Ernest Har- old Baynes, Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Ernest Thompson Seton, Charles Craw- ford Gorst, G. Clyde Fisher, and Admiral Robert E. Peary.— Ann E. Thomas.

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