Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo14amer (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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THE BLIND L\ THE AMERICAN MUSEUM 41 or the blind, with a wide experience, and we carried the discussion further than it had gone in England, and agreed that the small model should not be used alone, but that it is valu- able as supplementary to the examination of life-size mounted specimens of large mam- mals. The child forms a better conception of the animal as a whole, and of the proportion of its parts from the model which he can hold in his hands. His ad- justment to the conception of size may be trained, as is that of the sighted child when regard- ing maps, pictures or toys. The danger however of the first im- pression fixing an erroneous con- ception of size and texture is per- haps greater for the blind than for the normal child whose ad- justments are more rapid and constant. We propose therefore, both the life-size mount and the small model. The child shall first feel the actual speci- men, shall realize that it is large, hairy and so forth; then he shall take the model and study the appearance of the animal as a whole, and gain a more definite conception of its proportions. He may then study the mounted animal in detail. The blind children of the city are pitiably lacking in "back- ground." The most common objects are unknown to them; teachers find that the appear- ance of domestic animals, ex- cept perhaps the cat or dog, is outside of their knowledge. The visit to the Museum means more than an hour's instruction, more than the mere viewing of new objects, it means a change of environment, a stimulation of intellectual ex- pression, the appreciation of the socializing forces which go to pro- duce public institutions for the distribution of knowledge and the betterment of life. A blind man epitomized the labor and purpose of science when he laid his hand on the enormous meteorite "Ahnighito" brought from far Greenland, and exclaimed, "And they took all that trouble to bring this big thing down hero so we'd know there are such things."
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The work with the blind was made possible through the be- quest of Phebe Anna Thorne and gifts in her name by her brothers, Jonathan and Samuel Thorne

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