sections. This equipment is urgently needed, in addition to the $257,142.99 set aside for case construction, equipment and furniture in the two new buildings, the Asiatic and Oceanic Halls. It will also be necessary to ask the Board of Estimate and Apportionment for $200,000 to equip and furnish the School Service Building, now under construction. No further application will be made to the existing Board of Estimate and Apportionment for new buildings, because the Board will have well provided for these purposes, before the close of its term of office. Nor is it likely that the next incoming Board of Estimate, of 1926, will be in a position to make the large appropriations for the buildings required for the five new sections to be constructed, however friendly the new administration may be. The Trustees and Members of the Museum, therefore, should make the most strenuous efforts to secure by gift to the City of New York the following building sections, upon renewal of the agreement of 1910 that the City would not regard these gifts as relieving it from its obligation to build, as expressed in our Charter and Contract. The sections most urgently needed and the collections which they will house are as follows: Section 15-AUSTRALIAN HALL Life of Australia, floor III California and Plateau Indians, floor I Study Hall (Crafts and Textiles), floor IV Section 16-LECTURE AMPHITHEATER, after new plans with similar to the Eastman Theater at Estimated cost... $679,900.00 $3,032,640.00 There is no doubt that if one or more of these building sections could be secured by gift, the taxpayers of the City, through the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, would cheerfully appropriate the funds necessary to build Section 15-Australian, also the enlarged heating and lighting unit in the Northwest Court. This program for the completion of the sixteen sections of The American Museum of Natural History, as at present planned, involves a total expenditure of $8,228,645.00 for the five new sections, as compared with the total expenditure of $10.474,546.48 for the erection and equipment of the twelve sections already completed, planned, appropriated or legislated for. EXPLORATION, RESEARCH, PUBLICATION As shown in previous Reports, these four great intellectual, moral and spiritual functions of the American Museum are all interrelated, as all phenomena of life are interrelated. The high intellectual and educational purpose is incomplete without the moral and spiritual purpose which it serves. Citations from the great sayings of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt, at the opening of this Report, all refer to the political, moral and spiritual estate of our people, as well as to their economic welfare. It is the incessant endeavor of the American Museum in education to inspire and uplift, as well as to instruct. It is our conviction that Astronomy is the most inspiring of all the branches of science, which makes us so urgent in pressing our claims for a series of buildings to occupy the great central Astronomic Section of the Museum, so that it may take its due share as the mother of all the natural sciences. In the above summary by the President, the general principles and policy of the Museum's progress have been merely outlined. We necessarily omit many facts and details of the greatest interest in the five divisions or groups of subjects under which the work of the Museum is carried on in the seventeen departments embraced within these divisions, as shown on pages 29 et seq. of this Report. The Museum is advanced with marked ability, devotion and personal sacrifice by the seventy members of our Scientific and Administrative Staffs. The Acting Director, under whose immediate supervision all the scientific and administrative work of the Museum is carried on, will for the first time present the Director's report in a separate section. Mr. George H. Sherwood has not only filled this difficult office during the past year with signal ability but has advanced the cause of education in all departments of the Museum. The head officers or curators will continue this Report in their own language for themselves and for their colleagues, giving stress in each department to progress and education during the year. |