REPORT OF JSTATTONAL MUSEUM, 1913. 11 



In its well-designed cases, in wiiich every detail of structure, appoint- 

 ment, and color is considered, a selection of representative objects is 

 placed on view to the public, all being carefully labeled individually 

 and in groups. The child as well as the adult has been provided for, 

 and the kindergarten pupil and the high-school scholar can be seen 

 here, supplementing their classroom games or studies. Under 

 authority from Congress, the small colleges and higher grades of 

 schools and academies throughout the land, especially in places 

 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 great 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, classification, and 

 labeling of collections in order that they may be accessible to the 

 public and to students, has yet in these operations made important 

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

 have in turn been communicated to other scholars through its numer- 

 ous publications. But the collections have not been held for the 

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

 ing to the establislmient. Most freely have they been put at the 

 disposal of investigators connected with other institutions, and, in 

 fact, wdthout the help of many such the record of scientific progress 

 based upon the material in the Museum would have been greatly 

 curtailed. Wlien it is possible to so arrange, the investigator comes 

 to Washington; otherwise such collections as he needs are sent to 

 him, whether he resides in tliis 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 col- 

 lections, and thereby the National Museum has come to be recog- 

 nized as a conspicuous factor in the advancement of knowledge 

 wherever civihzation has a foothold. 



Most important among the operations of the past year was the work 

 upon the exhibition collections of natural history, in the arrangement 

 of which sufficient progress was made to justify the opening of all 

 the public halls in the new building, as described below. Much was 

 also accomplished in the direction of rehabihtating certain branches 

 of the department of the arts and industries, to which for a long time 

 it has been impossible to give proper recognition, owing to the over- 

 crowded condition of the Museum space preceding the occupation of 

 the new building. 



