Today we visited one of the best kept secrets in St. Louis (The St. Louis Mercantile Library) at the University of Missouri St. Louis. Our docent, Anne, was a natural born Montessori teacher and she presented the students with a variety of new lessons.  We have created a long list of topics to further investigate since our visit: Harriet Homer, presidential portraits, Missouri art, ornithology and railroads, Henry Clay, Jesse James, Sculptures, book binding, book restoration, Lewis and Clark’s journal, John Jacob Fur Trading Company, newspaper morgue’s, colonial newspapers,The Globe-Democrat, social engineering, Bobby Burns, young female captives of Native Americans and their diaries, animal hides and their uses, the tanning process, diaries of over-landers, and the list goes on.  Our next visit to the Mercantile will be to further our understanding of research topics for the students’ Westward Expansion projects. The quality and amount of primary resources in their collection is incredible.  Great Day! -Ms. Jenna