Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 72.djvu/380

376 In contrast to the achievements of these boys by a wise use of spare moments, we can but wonder what these hours would have counted for if there had been no museum, no books and no sympathetic personality to offer an occasional useful suggestion.

Some have maintained that physics and electricity are subjects not germane to museum work, and that a museum should remain loyal to its old purpose of collecting, preserving, classifying and exhibiting objects of scientific value. While the original object of a museum should be kept in mind, we must not lose sight of the fact

that a children's museum calls for such modifications and adaptations of methods as will enable children to use it, and here we must remember that the keynote of childhood and youth is action. Any museum ignoring this principle of activity in children must fail to attract them. The Children's Museum does not attempt to make electricians of its boys, nor is its purpose to do the work of any school. Its object is rather to understand the tastes and interests of is little people and to