Omaha daily bee., 1921-07-24
O, SKINNAY! HERE
ISASTORY BOUT
BUGS AND THINGS
Think of a Big Museum
Just for Children.
What 1t Is Like
BY EYE WITNESS.

as much as it did me.
The point in telling you about il
in your own way-whIch Is the best
way because it is the simplest and
realcst-instead of writing a digni-
fed, tiresome article for our grown
ups, is that you, after you have the
facts before you, can interest the
grownups in this fine thing much
more readily than | can.
You know we'll enough that though
every one Of you belongs to a grown
up, it is even truer that most grown
ups belong to you and would do al
most anything in the worl for you
That is part of the fun & ownps get
out of being your flthers and
mothers.
Once there was a boy that some
times would come tearing down the
hill-he lived at the top of the hill
and my family at the bottom of it
and he would say, "My uncle has
just sent us some more things from
China and my mother says you can
all come up to our house!
Then we would go, and more like
ly than not we would stay all the
rest of the day-it was so inter-
eSting
For we saw-and Lewis mother
would let us touch-gowns so heavy
with silk and gold they would stand
alone, and queer little ornaments of
Jade with faces on them that would
make you laugh, and vases and fans,
whereon those Chinese people had
made the sky with one or two lines
and the wide sea with one or two
more, and images carved out of ivory
and precious woods-with kind of
sad, thoughtful, tired faces on them,
which made you wonderland may
be the eyes would be inlays of jewels.
Liberal and Sympathetic.
TOMS mother said some people
called those things idols and the
people that made them idolators, but
she told us she liked to think of
them as helps to prayer and worship
and that the people that made them
maybe did it so those figures would
bring near to them the Unseen
Power that puts us in this world
and arranged it for us. Mrs. Pitcher
was always pleasant about explain
ing things that way. We all loved
her. At the end of the afternoon
she would give us cake and cambric
tea.
Well, that is just exactly the way
it is at the children's museum on
the edge of Bedford park in Brook
lyn, n. Y.-even to the cake-except
tht the house is 10 times bigger
than Lewis was, and that, instead
OF seeing wonderful things from
China alone you have the whole
wonderful world poured into your
lap.
You can touch things and work
with them, and you can mount beau
tiful butterflies and moths and
beetles with your own hands, and
there are young women and older
women to tell you about everything
and show you how to do everything
with microscopes, and chemicals,
and tools, and everything like that
No Verboten Signs Here.
There are no mo Admittance" or
Don't Touch" signs anywhere, and
the whole house and everything in it
are yours for nothing They give
you treasures and ask in return only
your interest.
You can become life member of
this Children's museum association
for 10 cents, but you are, just as
welcome whether you are a member
or not. | saw a couple of fellows
studying the birds and asked them
ii they were members and they said
no.
So l fixed that up and pretty soon
they came out of the secretarys |
room with membership buttons on
their coats, but the only difference
was that now they studied the birds
harder than ever and sort of smiled
when they looked around because, I
think, the docents-as the women
tell you things are called-kept
smiling at them and said, There |
are our newest membersr"
Sorter Stirs Ones Heart.
1t was kind of funny and very
fomelike-all that part.
If fellow wanted to know some
thing special about a bird he had
just noticed on his way through Bed
ford park, or about a plant he was
pressing, or about moth he was
mounting, or about the wireless tele-
graph mechanism they were teach
ing him to use, all he had to do was
10 step into a big room on the sec
ond floor of the house and Miss
Draper would give him a book about
it and help him to find the place he
wanted in the book.
Like all the women in the house,
she was awfully pleasant and she
laughed a lot. She said a fellow that
did not know exactly what he |
wanted came into see her the other
day and said: I
Miss Draper, have you got a
book about my sizel"
She found it and he was very
much obliged.
Here's Thorough Chap.
She told me about fellow named
Carl Funaro that got so interested
in beetles that he started copying
out the more than 200 pages OF Hem
shaw's List of Coleoptera of Amer
lea North of Mexico" because that |
is very rare book and very expen-
s;ve, but he wanted to have the facts
in it right alongside him at home
and when he was out collecting. So
he started copying the one Miss
Draper has but cannot lend out be-
cause it is so rare and she has only
one copy.------
She said that altosethe5 the chill