172 NINTH REPORT. 



MUSEUM METHODS. 1 

 F. S. Hall. 



In the limited time which I have at my disposal I shall endeavor to 

 present in a concise manner and from an executive standpoint, a few of the 

 problems which ' confront a modern museum, and to describe briefly 

 how some of these problems have been met at the Museum of the University 

 of Michigan. Speaking generally of the public at large, which also includes 

 many professional men in subjects closely allied to museum work, there 

 seems to be a general ignorance as to the real purpose and aim of the museum 

 of the present day. The prevailing opinion in the past and to a great extent 

 at the present time is, that a museum is a repository and exhibition place of 

 curios and freaks gathered from different parts of the world. There has been 

 reason for this belief as many of you are aware, and up to within a few years 

 we have been mostly familiar with ill-mounted specimens of mammals and 

 birds, regiments of shells marshalled in pasteboard trays, cases of insects, 

 etc., in many instances moth-eaten and covered with dust, and arranged 

 without regard to anything but their taxonomic order. Such was the mu- 

 seum of the past, but the modern museum is an entirely different affair, at 

 least in the best instances. That the American public is awakening to this 

 fact and beginning to appreciate the educational value of the museum is 

 illustrated by the numerous articles that have recently a]:)peared in several 

 prominent monthly magazines, on the different phases of museum work in 

 the larger American museums, notably the American Museum of Natural 

 History of New York, and the Field Museum of Natural History of Chicago, 

 which in many respects serve as models for the smaller institutions. 



In a lecture delivered before the Brooklyn Institute in 1889 on "The 

 Museums of the Future," G. Brown Goode- has outlined the true scope of 

 the modern museum in the following words: 



"The museum of the past must be set aside, reconstructed, transformed 

 from a cemetery of bric-a-brac into a nursery of living thoughts. The mu- 

 seum of the future must stand side by side with the library and the labora- 

 tory, as a part of the teaching equipment of the college and university, and 

 in the great cities cooperate with the public library as one of the principal 

 agencies for the enlig-htenment of the people." 



To particularize and come nearer to the scope of a museum like the one 

 here at the University of Michigan, I can do no better than to give a general 

 resume of the special aims of a local museum as formulated by a museum 

 committee of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.^ 

 They are as follows: 



"1. To contribute its share to the general scientific statistics of the country 

 by collecting and preserving specimens of natural production of the dis- 

 trict in which it is situated. 



1 From the University Museum, University of Michigan. 



2 1889. Goode, G. Brown, "The Museum of the Future." Kept. U. S. National Mu- 

 seum, 1889, p. 427. 



3 1893, Morse, Edw. S., "If Public Libraries Why not Public Museums?" Kept. U. S 

 National Museum, 1893, p. 777. 



