4 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Foremost among the institutions to-day stand the universities and 

 the museums ; all others are represented by men who have been trained 

 in one of these two. Now what should be the attitude of them to each 

 other, especially when they coexist, as they often do, in the same city? 

 Mergence has been suggested, but it would appear, unwisely. For each 

 has its honorable traditions and does not wish to surrender independ- 

 ence. Further, they represent such different types of work that they 

 would accomplish much more by careful cooperation than by any blend- 

 ing, for coalition would produce a mongrel of less virility. The plan 

 should be cooperation and division of labor in subjects in which they 

 overlap, so as to avoid waste of energy, otherwise maintenance of pres- 

 ent independence. 



In these matters human knowledge and the methods of getting it 

 are of prime importance, not the fair name of an institution; or we 

 should state it better by saying men's labors give the name to the insti- 

 tution. For seen rightly a university or a museum is only a tool 

 towards this end, and should not stand in the way of it. We often hear 

 it said that a man is or should be an underling of a particular institu- 

 tion. This is radically wrong, at least provided the object of that insti- 

 tution is to increase knowledge and not merely to conserve it and pass 

 it on. A university or a museum is a complex engine, but still a tool, 

 and how it should be used should be decided by the men who know best 

 its object, and those men are chiefly, but not wholly, the investigators 

 — curators or professors. For a man of original ideas to subject himself 

 to any crystallizing conditions of an institution is an anachronism and 

 an anomaly. He serves his institution best who serves his subject most 

 loyally. The subject is the goddess to be followed, the institution is 

 only one of her shrines. 



What we are all here for is to make the most of natural talents, and 

 to cooperate for the good of our subjects. This can result only in 

 benefit to the institution in whose walls we work. Applying this prin- 

 ciple, let us see how museums may cooperate helpfully with certain 

 other associations of naturalists. 



For the most part museums fill an important place and represent 

 activity that is not developed elsewhere. But there is some waste, and 

 there are also opportunities that museums have not tried to grasp. For 

 instance, little good is accomplished by public popular lectures, 

 whether given by academy, university or museum; in my experience 

 they appeal mostly to the mentally unoccupied, to those who lack re- 

 source in their evening hours. I would not say they are valueless, for 

 sometimes their seed falls into proper ground, and also they eke out the 

 salaries of poor curators and professors. But, on the whole, they are 

 mistaken charity and so constitute a waste, unless great care is taken 

 that there is not a plethora of them. Much attendance on lectures is 



