Bird lore - Project Puffin

Reports of Pield Agents 433
REPORT OF MRS. W. T. WILSON, FIELD AGENT
FOR INDIANA
Receiving the appointmenl of P'icld Agcnl of the National Association of
Audubon Societies on March 6, I began at once the work of organizing Junior
Societies by sending out letters to the superintendents of various schools
throughout the state, and also getting into touch with Superintendent J. G.
Collicott of the Indianapolis public schools in order that I might properly
reach the pupils of the grade schools. The replies to my letters came promj^tly
and were very favorable. There seemed to be a wave of interest in bird-study,
and as soon as it was learned that a lecturer would come at an appointed time
I was besieged with applications for talks. Very shortly every possible date
up to June 6, the close of the season, was taken, and had there been time many
other engagements could have been filled.
I had expected at first to spend the greater part of the time in the smaller
cities of the state, but the plan of introducing the work of the Audubon Society
in the city schools was so enthusiastically entered into by Superintendent Colli-
cott and Miss Rousseau McClellan, head of the nature-study work, that I could
have spent every day of the three months in the sixty-six grade schools of this
city. But I had already planned to visit and speak in the public schools of War-
saw, Winona, Bluffton, Michigan City, Rushville, Brazil, and Bedford, and these
engagements were filled. The demand in the local schools was so great that
every day not otherwise engaged was immediately spoken for. The last lecture
was given on the last day of school. Between March 6 and June 6, I gave
seventy-five lectures, many of them illustrated by stereopticon slides, reach-
ing a total of 18,960 pupils and teachers. The first lecture, in School No. 2 in
this city, was before an audience of 350, and a class of 398 was formed in the
building, many children joining who were not privileged to hear the talk. In
School No. 32 I spoke, with stereopticon slides, before a fine audience of 700
children, and the aftermath was a Junior Class of 321 pupils.
Wherever bird-talks were given there was the most intense interest in the
work of the Audubon Society and all that it stands for; although, owing to
purely local conditions in some of the districts, the response was not always
what it should have been in the organization of Junior Classes.
In every town I visited I made it a point to reach every pupil in school
that day; and even if societies have not been organized in the numbers that
they might have been, interest in the life and protection of birds has been so
awakened that much good must result, not only for the birds but for the boys
and girls who have been taught to safeguard the life of every bird.
Wherever I have talked I have started this slogan among the children:
"Save the birds," and it has had most beneficial results. I have had many
letters from boys and girls teUing me of specific instances where they have been
able to save a bird's life. One boy wrote me, "I have saved a bird;" and he