Famous Givers and Their GiftsBolton, Sarah Knowles
History
Famous Givers and Their Gifts
Bolton, Sarah Knowles
Philanthropists
Mrs. Hemenway established the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics, from
which teachers have gone to Radcliffe College, Cambridge; Bryn Mawr,
Pennsylvania; Denver, Colorado; Drexel Institute, Philadelphia; their
average salary being slightly less than one thousand dollars, the
highest salary reaching eighteen hundred dollars. Boston has now made
the teaching of gymnastics a part of its normal-school work, so that
every graduate goes out prepared to direct the work in the school. Mrs.
Hemenway gave generously to aid the Boston Teachers' Mutual Benefit
Association; for she said, "Nothing is too good for the Boston
teachers." She was a busy woman, with no time for fashionable life,
though she welcomed to her elegant home all who had any helpful work to
do in the world. She used her wealth and her social position to help
humanity. She died leaving her impress on a great city and State, and
through that upon the nation.
New York State and City are now carrying out an admirable plan of free
lectures for the people. The State appropriates twenty-five thousand
dollars annually that free lectures may be given "in natural history,
geography, and kindred subjects by means of pictorial representation and
lectures, to the free common schools of each city and village of the
State that has, or may have, a superintendent of free common schools."
These illustrated lectures may also be given "to artisans, mechanics,
and other citizens."
This has grown largely out of the excellent work done by Professor
Albert S. Bickmore of the American Museum of Natural History, Eighth
Avenue and Seventy-seventh Street, Central Park, New York. In 1869, when
the Museum was founded, the teachers of the public schools were required
to give object-lessons on animals, plants, human anatomy, and
physiology, and came to the Museum to the curator of the department of
ethnology, Professor Bickmore, for assistance. His lectures, given on
Saturday forenoons, illustrated by the stereopticon, were upon the
body,--the muscular system, nervous system, etc.; the mineral
kingdom,--granite, marble, coal, petroleum, iron, etc.; the vegetable
kingdom,--evergreens, oaks, elms, etc.; the animal kingdom,--the sea,
corals, oysters, butterflies, bees, ants, etc.; physical geography,--the
Mississippi Valley, Yellowstone National Park, Mexico, Egypt, Greece,
Italy, West Indies, etc.; zoölogy,--fishes, reptiles, and birds, the
whale, dogs, seals, lions, monkeys, etc.
These lectures became so popular and helpful that the trustees of the
Museum hired Chickering Hall for some of the courses, which were
attended by over thirteen hundred teachers each week. Professor
Bickmore also gives free illustrated lectures to the people on the
afternoons of legal holidays at the Museum, under the auspices of the
State Department of Public Instruction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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