The Agricultural College of the University of Wisconsin has prepared a moving-picture film depicting the historical stages in the invention of the Babcock test. Fortunately it was possible to have as principal actors in the scenario the two men who played the principal rôles in the original discovery, Professor Babcock and Professor Henry.
The Wisconsin Archeological Society, which holds monthly meetings during the year in the Milwaukee Library-Museum, has been giving during the past year a series of lectures on American anthropology and archeology, the subjects ranging from descriptions of the Eskimo to the antiquities of Brazil. For the coming year President Barrett proposes a series of lectures which will constitute a course of study in American anthropology, with its relations to geology, zoölogy, ethnobotany, folk lore, and the fur trade.
The Milwaukee Museum is planning to install a replica of Solomon Juneau’s fur-trade post, in anticipation of next year’s centenary of Juneau’s first appearance on the site of Milwaukee.
On February 22 the Milwaukee Old Settlers’ Club, organized in 1869, held its annual banquet at the Pfister Hotel. During the year
thirty-two of its members had been claimed by death. On May 17 many members of the club joined in celebrating the ninetieth birthday of Frederick Layton, the Milwaukee philanthropist.
The old settlers of Pierce and St. Croix counties held a “homecoming” at Ellsworth on June 20. The qualification for membership in the organization is forty years’ residence in the St. Croix Valley.
On January 17 the old settlers of De Pere met at the Presbyterian Church. Speeches relating to the early history of the Fox River Valley were delivered.
In connection with the summer session of the University of Wisconsin an archeological and local historical excursion was given July 7. This is the fourth time that Curator Charles E. Brown, assisted by local historians, has coöperated with the university in arranging such a field day. The number of excursionists is limited to one hundred, and admission to the privilege is eagerly sought by students from distant parts of the United States, who desire to learn of the first things in Madison’s environment.
Pageantry is proving one of the most attractive means of popularizing and visualizing history. At Milton College’s semi-centennial its history was vivified by a pageant written by the faculty and produced by the literary societies. West Allis, under the joint auspices of the schools and the library, enjoyed a pageant in the early summer, written by W. E. Jillson, city librarian.
At Monroe on June 7 the commencement exercises of the high school took the form of a historical pageant. The Mitchell Park Sane Fourth Committee provided a pageant for Milwaukee southsiders on our national holiday. A number of other pageants that had been planned have been postponed because of war conditions.