DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



377 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



THE FUNCTIONS OF A MUSEUM 

 AND OF ITS DIRECTOR. 



To the Editor: — Professor E. Ray 

 Lankester, director of the Museum of 

 Natural History, London, concluded an 

 address on 'The Scope and Functions 

 of Museums' at the opening of a new 

 wing of the Ipswich Museum on No- 

 vember 8 with the following words: 



A county museum is not a place for 

 children or school-teaching: it is not 

 Noah's Ark or Madame Tussaud's wax- 

 works, but a place for the delight of 

 grown-up men and women. It should 

 be full of the things which are the 

 pride of those who care for the history 

 and natural life of their coimtryside, 

 and just as you do not use a picture 

 gallery to teach the elements of draw- 

 ing, but for the enjoyment of fine pic- 

 tures, so your county museum must be 

 for the enjoyment by your grown-up, 

 educated people of the rarities of na- 

 ture and of art, and not for the cram- 

 ming of schoolboys and schoolgirls. 



If a local museum is a place no bet- j 



ter for school teaching than Madame 

 Tussaud's ' chamber of horrors,' or if 

 it only serves for the cramming of 

 school-boys, so much the worse for the 

 museum and its director. Neither has 

 Professor Lankester a very high opin- 

 ion of adult visitors, for in the same 

 address he calls them ' innocent ' and 

 ' casual well-meaning.' Such sarcasm 

 and assumption of superiority ill befits 

 the director of a museum. 



Surely a man who accepts a position 

 such as the directorship of the British 

 Museum of Natural History or the 

 secretaryship of the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution owes a definite duty to the pub- 

 lic, and should not permit his impres- 

 sions of his own dignity to interfere 

 with the services for which he is paid. 



Can you not, sir, secure for your 

 excellent journal an article on ' The 

 Scope and Functions of a Museum Di- 

 rector ' ? 



A Teacher. 



