388 NATURAL SCIENCE [December 



borough demand it, but the operation of the act is dependent upon 

 the action of the very people who are most needing instruction by 

 museum agency. Not infrequently the act is put into operation to 

 gain a library, and a museum of ill-assorted material grows up with 

 it, by a system of accretion rather than assimilation. Indeed, it is 

 this accretionary growth for want of a defined plan which is the bane 

 of provincial museums, and one which the curators themselves are at 

 present powerless to prevent. Further, museums are recognised by 

 the Educational and Science and Art Departments in that attend- 

 ance at a museum by school children and science students is, under 

 certain conditions, allowed to count as class attendance, and specimens 

 are loaned to them from the Art collection of South Kensington. 



It has followed from the operation of causes such as those in- 

 dicated that a type of museum has arisen throughout the country 

 which justifies the charge of ill-conceived, lacking in proportion, 

 wanting in utility and inadequately supported and staffed. If we 

 bear the present conditions in mind, and consider the proposed 

 remedies, it is manifest at once that the utmost difficulty would be 

 experienced in the attempt to create a federal staff of scientific ex- 

 perts on the lines which have been advocated by Professor Petrie. 

 The museums are so unequal, their sections vary so strangely, both in 

 ratio to one another and in their value, that the attempt to send to 

 a series of museums a number of specialists, devoting equal amounts 

 of time to each, would result in confusion and failure. 



The first plan suggested in the editorial comment of Natural 

 Science of August last is practically that of Professor Petrie, with 

 the added proviso that the specialists should be resident, one at each 

 museum, whilst the same round of visits was maintained. Other 

 considerations apart, municipal jealousies would effectually kill the 

 scheme. 



The second plan is delightful by reason of its naive character 

 rather than its practicability. The visits of specialists from the 

 Government museums are red-letter days to the provincial curator, 

 valuable alike for the rare good fellowship meted out to the humbler 

 brother in science, for the gratuitous work done, and the remarkable 

 stimulus and enthusiasm imparted; but that the arrangement and 

 scientific work of provincial museums should be left to the staff of 

 Government museums, increased in numbers for the purpose, is a 

 plan hardly likely to commend itself to the provincial curator or his 

 governors, and even less likely to Parliament, which would need to 

 be approached to decide the question. 



There is much in each plan that is admirable, but after all they 

 are in the nature of makeshifts rather than a solution of the 

 question. What seems to be needed is a thorough grapple with 

 flii; whole question of museum development, and (to borrow a 



