REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1915. 11 



where museums do not exist, are also being aided in their educational 

 work by sets of duplicate specimens, selected and labeled to meet the 

 needs of both teachers and pupils. 



Nor has the elementary or even the higher education been by any 

 means the sole gainer from the work of the Museum. To advance 

 knowledge, to gradually extend the boundaries of learning, has been 

 one of the gTeat tasks to which the Museum, in consonance with the 

 spirit of the Institution, has set itself from the first. Its staff, 

 though chiefly engaged in the duties incident to the care, classifica- 

 tion, and labeling of collections in order that they may be accessible 

 to the public and to students, has yet in these operations made im- 

 portant discoveries in every department of the Museum's activities, 

 which have in turn been communicated to other scholars through its 

 numerous publications. But the collections have not been held for 

 the study of the staff nor for the scientific advancement of those be- 

 longing to the establishment. Most freely have the}^ been put at the 

 disposal of investigators connected with other institutions, without 

 whose help the record of scientific progi'ess based upon the material 

 in the Museum would have been greatly curtailed. When it is pos- 

 sible to so arrange, the investigator comes to Washington ; otherwise 

 such collections as he needs are sent to him, whether he resides in this 

 country or abroad. In this manner practically every prominent 

 specialist throughout the world interested in the subjects here well 

 represented has had some use of the collections and thereby the Na- 

 tional Museum has come to be recognized as a conspicuous factor in 

 the advancement of knowledge wherever civilization has a foothold. 



