MUSEUMS AND THE SCHOOLS.

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20916, 25 July 1933, Page 10

MUSEUMS AND THE SCHOOLS.

POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENTS. OUTSTANDING AMERICAN EXAMPLE. The educational value of the work being done by some museums in America, and on a smaller scale in New Zealand by the Auckland Museum, in giving special attention to co-operation with the schools, and providing portable exhibits for use in the classrooms, was commented on by Professor J. Shelley yesterday. Although something was done in Christchurch by occasional visits to the museum by groups of school children, this was a small thing compared with the great deal that any museum might achieve in the field of education. It was, of course, largely a matter of finance, where American institutions had every advantage, said Professor Shelley, but it was a pity that in New Zealand so little use was made of the opportunity that existed to link the facilities offered by the museums with the work of the schools. A visit to the museum by a group of children under their own teacher had the advantage of costing the museum nothing, but the amount of benefit received from such visits depended on the qualities of the individual teacher. A Special Function. Far more could be done if on the staff of the museum was a person whose whole job was to develop its educational facilities. Such an official's functions would cover not only instruction given in the museum itself, but work done in schools in collaboration with the museum, and using in the classrooms some of its exhibits. Without the supervision such a person could give, it was hardly likely that museum authorities would be eager to lend exhibits to the schools. This initial step should not be beyond the financial resources of the museums of the Dominion. In New Zealand the only museum which has yet paid much attention to the educational side is the Auckland museum. There, in collaboration wit.h the education board, a system has been on an American model—of sending cases of exhibits to the schools for use in the classrooms. So far 36 of these cases are in use. being mainly devoted to New Zealand natural history subjects. In addition many of "the cases in the museum itself are planned so that they may be most useful for teaching purposes. Commenting on this, Professor Shelley said that in general the exhibits in New Zealand museums tended to be so crowded together for lack of space that when children were taken to see them the task of the teacher was very difficult. A Notable Museum. Field Museum, at Chicago, provides the outstanding example of a full development of the educational side of museum work. The authorities there realised early that the museum could not perform its full mission for the benefit of all the school children, merely by maintaining the exhibits within its own walls and inviting the children to go and see them. Consequently, beginning more than 20 years ago, it was arranged to provide portable exhibits on natural history and economic subjects, and also to send out lecturers to give illustrated talks to the children, at the same time drawing attention to exhibits in the museum, which further illustrated these subjects. To develop the scheme a special department (possessing an endowment of £65,000 for distributing exhibits, and £ 100,000 for lecture work) was set up, with a complete staff of specialists. A special type of exhibition case, built to standard two-foot square dimensions, and meeting all requirements of stability, portability, usefulness in display, and attractive appearance, has been designed for sending to the schools. With each case are sent descriptive cards printed in type easy to read and stating in the simplest language the most important facts about the contents of the case. Each year the facilities of the department have been extended, until 1000 cases are available, covering 350 different titles for some of which there are as many as ten duplicates. Nature of the Exhibits. In general the plan of the work at Chicago has been to show the school children chiefly cases containing mammals, birds, insects, fishes, reptiles and other natural history subjects which they are likely to encounter in fields, lanes, parks, and ponds, in and around Chicago. In most of them the habitat method of exhibition has been used. The backgrounds consist of enlarged and coloured photographs of the environment of the specimens exhibited, curved to give the proper perspective, while the foregrounds are faithful reproductions of plants, rocks, water, sections of ground and other environmental features. There are also many cases dealing with economic subjects, showing successive steps in the preparation of food products, the preparation and manufacture of materials for clothing, the various stages in the making of glass, paper, chinaware, and other industrial products that come within the daily use or observation of the child. Other cases contain models of prehistoric animals, models of mines, and other miscellaneous subjects. For 600,000 Pupils. Cases are being lent regularly to about 386 schools, having a combined enrolment of nearly 600,000 pupils. At the beginning of the school year two cases each are delivered to all the schools, and at the end of two weeks these cases are collected and delivered to other schools, while others are left in their place. Constant variety is maintained, and a wide range of subjects is covered by the 36 ci-ses received by each school in a year. In this arrangement 772 of the 1000 cases are in daily use in the schools. Still other work is carried on within the Museum building itself, including the direction of the child's exploration of the knowledge available there, the correlation of museum studies with schoolroom work, and the supplementing of museum exhibits with lectures, moving pictures, and lantern slides. Attractive printed stories in souvenir form, based on lectures and pictures, and on related material to be seen in the museum, are distributed to child visitors.