LEE BARKER WALTON 67 



former catalogues to a card system. Incoming material 

 can be catalogued on the cards, and as the opportunity 

 allows, data from the previous records can be transferred 

 to cards. 



Conservatism^ is a valuable factor in connection with 

 all scientific work. It has its limitations, however, and in 

 order to make definite progress in any direction, old 

 methods must give place to new ones — the fittest will 

 survive. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



DORSEY, G. A. 



'99. (The Cataloguing of Museum Specimens), American Anthropologist, n. s., 

 1, p. 473. 



Meyer, A. B. 



:00-01. Ueber Museen des Ostens der vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. R. 

 Friedlander und Sohn, Berlin. (Also see translation in Report of the U. S. 

 National Museum for 1903, p. 311-808 with 40 plates). 



HOYLE, W. E. 



'91. The Registration and Cataloguing of Museum Specimens. Annual Report 

 of The Museums Association, Cambridge, England. 



Madeley, Chas. 



:04. The Classification of Office Papers. Mus. Jour., v. 4, no. 3, p. 73-95. 



Murray, David 



:04. Museums, Their History and their Use. 3 vols., J. MacLehose and Sons, 

 Glasgow, Scotland. 



Walton, L. B. 



:04. The Cataloguing of Museum Collections. Ohio Naturalist, v. 4, no. 3, 

 p. 62. 



Wray, L. 



:05. A System for the Registration of the Contents of Museums. Museums 

 Journal, June, p. 407-412. 



^Meyer, (:00-01) in his excellent review of the museums of the eastern United 

 States depreciates the lack of uniformity among the various American museums in 

 respect to the installation of the collections. In reply to this criticism however it 

 might well be suggested that to a certain extent at least this lack of uniformity is 

 an indication of healthy activity. It is not considered necessary in this country to 

 cling to traditional ideas which are too often brought to the attention of one visiting 

 European museums. New methods of dealing with well known problems are sought 

 and evolved — and if their value is proven — they are adopted. 



Since the above paragraph was first written (Aug. 1901) Dr. Jordan in his 

 presidential address before the members of Sigma Xi (Dec. 31, 1903) expressed 

 similar ideas regarding this tendency which he had noted. "In France, in Germany, 

 even in England, the tradition of great names, the customs of great museums, largely 

 outweigh the testimony of the things themselves. The willingness to adopt new 

 ideas is, broadly speaking, in proportion to the spirit of democracy by which a 

 worker is surrounded." 



