NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS 43 



museum that consists mainly of collections, and of simple caretakers of 

 these, has a speaking resemblance to a graveyard; dead specimens and 

 gravestones betoken the past, and a mere conservator, like a sexton, has 

 little to add to the future. It is as sad and melancholy a state as that 

 of a university whose professors are nothing but teachers and com- 

 mittee men. There were magnificent collections in Pompeii, but so 

 long as they remained buried beneath the soil they were of absolutely 

 no use; they became of interest only when experts examined and in- 

 terpreted them. I recall well a certain museum, founded out of piety, 

 full of dead bones, where for years the only persons of any useful activ- 

 ity were the janitors and mechanicians ; and it had an honorable board 

 of directors too. Museums may become stagnant quite as well as other 

 institutions. When the preparator and mounted rhinoceros are con- 

 sidered above the curator, and the exhibition collection above published 

 research, then a museum is becoming senile. The strength of an insti- 

 tution lies wholly in its men. Past achievements are honorable pos- 

 sessions, but like an old family name entail the greater responsibility on 

 the bearer. Any one who lives in the past will be treated like the past, 

 and drop out from the race. For what museums do we call the great 

 ones? Those with the staffs of prominent investigators, where there 

 are many curators and all active in research. It is just the same with 

 universities; international reputation is not based on buildings and 

 number of students, but upon the number of original thinkers who pub- 

 lish. A dictionary is a museum of words, but it has no particular use 

 until some one comes along and uses these words for a writing that 

 people will read. 



Very frequently a museum expends a sum for a single specimen or 

 for a collecting expedition, sufficient to maintain several good men for 

 a year. Often again it has a chance to secure an investigator, and hesi- 

 tates because the expenditure would have to be drawn from some 

 library or janitorial fund. Too often it is apt to consider the exhibition 

 series to be its main purpose, and to regard men valuable only as ar- 

 rangers of the exhibition. The saddest trait of all is self complacence, 

 satisfaction in conditions as they are for this marks decay. 



New timber must be planted, or any institution will soon lose its 

 prestige. Worthy collections should be housed in suitable buildings, 

 but the crown of the whole is the strength of the staff of curators. 

 They come first in the judgment of the world as opposed to local opin- 

 ion. When one names the great museums of Paris one forgets the 

 specimens in the revered memory of Lamarck, Cuvier, Humboldt, the 

 Saint-Hilaires and the Milne-Edwards. Such names constitute great- 

 ness, their writings have vivified the collections. America is too young 

 to have many great names in natural history, but what reputation would 

 our museums have without Horn, Say, Dana, Cope, the Agassiz's, 

 Leidy, Baird and Gray? 



