Vol. V] EVERMANN— DIRECTOR'S REPORT FOR 1914 19 



its investigators through field investigations and laboratory 

 study of specimens is made known to the world chiefly through 

 the medium of the museum's publications. 



This important function of the museum has been admirably 

 performed by the California Academy of Sciences. Its pub- 

 lications have always been of a high order of excellence, and 

 through them the Academy is well and favorably known 

 throughout the scientific world. This function of the museum 

 must not be neglected; research must be encouraged in every 

 proper way. 



The second function of a public museum is that of useful- 

 ness to the public in an educational way. Not until recently 

 has this function been realized or received much atttention, 

 but now it is the dominant and controlling thought in many 

 of our greatest museums. 



It is true that most museums, from the very beginning, have 

 maintained considerable collections of natural history objects, 

 and specimens in other groups, which the visitor might see; 

 but, as Director Lucas of the American Museum of Natural 

 History has so well said, "The visitor was greeted by row 

 upon row of animals, most literally stuffed, arrayed in ranks 

 and accompanied by labels whose principal mission was to 

 convey to the public what to them is a most unimportant 

 matter, the scientific names." 



Shall our Museum be a "Haunt of the Muses", such as 

 Ptolemy Soter founded at Alexandria in 300 B. C. ? Yes, 

 it should be that, but it must be much more than that. It 

 should be not only a place /'dedicated to the cultivation of 

 learning" and frequented by men and women devoted to learn- 

 ing and the improvement of human knowledge, but it should 

 also be a treasure-house of specimens of the animals, plants 

 and other natural objects of the world, and of objects illus- 

 trative of the life and activities of the races of men. 



Museums, in the modern sense of the word, had their origin 

 in the effort to preserve and care for rare and curious objects 

 which travelers brought home from distant parts of the world. 

 Collecting of rare and strange objects was first raised to the 

 dignity of a fine art in Italy. The Medici at Florence and the 

 Estes in Modena were the first; they set the example which 

 in time spread throughout Europe. 



