VOL. VII

The History of Instruction at the Museum

THE

HE Bulletin for June, 1906, contained a historical sketch of the educational work of the Museum. Of the chief methods of instruction initiated since, the service of Docents was referred to as a future possibility, the Thursday Conferences were a plan not ripe for announcement, and the Collegiate Courses had not been contemplated. The following recapitulation brings the account of this side of the work of the Museum down to the immediate present in more detail and completes it by the mention of a number of minor agencies employed before and since.

1876-1885. Technical instruction in the fine arts has been maintained continuously in the building since it was opened in 1876. During that year the Trustees granted the use of unoccupied rooms to classes afterward organized as the School of Drawing and Painting. For nine years thereafter narrow means restricted the Trustees to the offer of this privilege, the issue of free tickets to students and copyists, the preparation of labels and a general catalogue, and the foundation of a library open to all visitors. The influence of the collections was meanwhile extended by loans, which began in 1882 with the loan of a painting to the Royal Academy in London, and have been continuous since, most of them for purposes of instruction; and by the sale of photographs of objects in the Museum, which began during the same

year.

1885-1901. In 1885 the administrative staff, hitherto limited to the Curator and Secretary with one or two assistants, was enlarged by the appointment of two officers to the charge of departments. In 1887 the series of catalogues raisonnés of the collections and exhibitions, to which nearly every year since has brought its additions, was opened by the late S. R. Koehler's Catalogue of Rembrandt's Etchings, a book of permanent value, as the London Academy wrote; and the Catalogue of Greek and Roman Casts, by Mr. Edward Robinson, since a text-book on the subject. In 1890 the Morse Collection of Japanese Pottery was purchased and the collections of Chinese and Japanese art belonging to Dr. Bigelow and to Dr. Weld were entrusted to the keeping of the Museum. Two officers were placed in charge of

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the new department. Munificent gifts and bequests of money enabled the Museum to begin in 1894 the series of purchases which have mainly created its collections of classical art, of prints and of pictures by the masters.

1901-1908. In 1901 the School of Drawing and Painting became the School of the Museum. In 1902 the staff was again enlarged by several appointments, and the systematic study of methods of public service was undertaken simultaneously with the study of plans for the new building. The issue of instructors' and scholars' tickets, since 1895 available to all teachers and pupils in the public schools of Boston, was extended to all schools and colleges of Boston and vicinity. In 1903 the Museum Bulletin, first proposed by the late Professor Norton in 1882, was established. A similar Bulletin has been issued by the Metropolitan Museum in New York since 1905, and another by the Imperial Museums in Berlin since 1907. Another will be begun in 1909 by the Royal Museums in Florence. In 1904 lecture courses, first proposed by the President of the Museum in 1891, were begun with the coöperation of Simmons College as lectures chiefly addressed to teachers. Similar lectures had been given in the galleries under the auspices of the New England History Teachers' Association since 1901. In 1905 a collection of lantern slides representing objects in the Museum was begun and its use freely offered for lectures in the Museum and elsewhere.

In 1906 the initial edition of a Handbook of the Museum, first proposed in 1892, was issued. The administrative organization of the Museum was this year enlarged by the appointment of visiting committees to various departments and branches of Museum work, among them a committee on Educational Effort; and, in further aid of this interest, a volunteer committee on the Utilization of Museums by Schools and Colleges was formed under the chairmanship of President Eliot. This committee arranged for a series of public lectures on topics germane to Museums, and for the continuation of the courses to teachers and others, given at the Museum since 1904. During this year a lecture room was provided for these and other purposes of instruction, occupying space obtained by uniting two department offices in the basement of the Museum; and the first of a series

Loans for Instruction - Prints to the University of Kansas; textiles to the Lowell Textile School, Norwich Art School, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Brookline Educational Society. Instructors' and Scholars' Tickets - Number issued, 2,893.

1904. Publications-"Manual of Renaissance Sculpture," B. I. Gilman; "Early Engraving in America," E. H. Richter; "Turner's Liber Studiorum," F. H. Bullard.

Lecture Courses-At the Museum with

the coöperation of Simmons College:
"Greek and Roman Art," B. H. Hill,
Assistant Curator of Classical Art, now
Director of the American School of
Classical Studies at Athens; "Modern
Painting," Miss Alicia M. Keyes;
"Painting of the Renaissance," W. Ran-
kin, instructor in art at Wellesley College;
"Illustrations of Greek and Roman Civ-
ilization in the Museum Collections,"
Miss A. B. Thompson, of Thayer Acad-
emy, Braintree, Mass.

Loans for Instruction - Textiles to schools
of design in New England.
Instructors' and Scholars' Tickets- Num-
ber issued, 4,008.

1905. Lecture Courses-At the Museum in cooperation with Simmons College: "Classical Art," B. H. Hill; "Sculpture and Painting of the Renaissance," W. Rankin; "Painting of The Netherlands of the Seventeenth Century," Miss Alicia M. Keyes.

Instructors' and Scholars' Tickets - Number issued, 4,857.

1906. Publications-"Handbook of the Mu-
seum" (initial edition issued in June);
"American Silver," R. T. H. Halsey
and J. H. Buck.
Committees Visiting Committee on Edu-
cational Effort, established January 18;
Committee on the Utilization of Mu-
seums by Schools and Colleges, organ-
ized May 23.

Lecture Courses-In the Library of the
Museum: "The Stevens Drawings of
the Erechtheum," B. H. Hill. In the
Textile Gallery: "Lace," Signorina
Carolina Amari.

Under the auspices of the Visiting
Committee to the Print Department:
"On the Development of the Graphic
Arts," E. H. Richter.

In coöperation with Simmons College: "Greek Art," Sidney N. Deane, Assistant Curator of Classical Art; "Sculp

Institute of Technology; "Painting," Miss Alicia M. Keyes.

Arranged by the Committee on Utilization Public Lectures at Huntington Chambers: "The Consideration of Painting," John LaFarge; "The Consideration of the Minor Arts," John LaFarge; "Sculpture," Professor George Santayana, of Harvard University; "What May the Schools do to Advance the Understanding of Art?" Professor H. L. Warren, of Harvard University; "Architecture," W. P. P. Longfellow; "Museums of Art and Public Schools," Walter Sargent, Director of Drawing in the Public Schools of Boston. At Simmons College: "Modern Art and the Public," Miss Cecilia Beaux; "Portraiture," Miss Cecilia Beaux. Lecture Room Constructed in space tained by giving up the separate office of the Egyptian Department. Loans for Instruction-Deposit of pictures, prints, textiles, and other objects with Smith College, Northampton, Mass., and with the John Herron Art Institute, Indianapolis, Ind.; textiles loaned to the State Normal School, Fitchburg, Mass. ; reproductions of armor loaned to the South End Branch of the Boston Public Library.

ob

Instructors' and Scholars' Tickets — Number issued, 4,195.

1907. Publication 1907. Publication-"Japanese Sword Guards," Okabe-Kakuya.

Docents-Guidance of visitors in the galleries made the special duty of G. M. Borden (in April) and L. Earle Rowe (in October), administrative assistants. Loans for Instruction-Japanese objects and textiles to the North Bennett Street School; textiles to the Lowell Textile School, Newton High School, and Manual Training High School, Brookline. Smith College and John Herron Art Institute loans continued.

Postal Cards-Reproducing objects in the collections, first sold at the door. Lecture Courses—In continuation of courses offered with the coöperation of Simmons College: "The Art of Praxiteles," Sidney N. Deane, Assistant Curator of Classical Art; "The Observation of Pictures," Miss Alicia M. Keyes. Lecture Room-Used during the year for 168 lectures to 3,263 auditors. Instructors' and Scholars' Tickets - Number issued, 5,058.

J. O. Sumner, of the Massachusetts

Chinese Pottery" (in press), John Getz.