BULLETIN 



OP 



THE CHARLESTON MUSEUM 



Vol. 8 CHARLESTON, S. C, DECEMBER, 1912 No. 8 



WHAT THE MUSEUn OFFERS THE SCHOOLS 



In an address delivered before the Charleston County Teach- 

 ers Association in 1907 ^ Mrs. Paul M. Rea presented an outline 

 of what the Charleston Museum then postulated as its ideal of 

 the relations which should exist between it and the schools of 

 Charleston County. It is the purpose of this paper to show 

 what progress has been made toward the realization of this ideal, 

 and in what measure the ideal itself has broadened. Harold 

 Francis Dike has said that ' ' the realization of an ideal is death. ' ' 

 May the Museum ever realize its ideals only to find them but the 

 path-makers for higher ideals of service. 



Mrs. Rea, in her address, considers not the ideal relations of an 

 ideal museum to an ideal public school system, but a concrete 

 ideal for the relation of the Charleston Museum to the schools 

 of Charleston County. Let us briefly review the means suggested 

 for the attainment of this relation. 



First Mrs. Rea discusses the educational value, for school 

 purposes as well as for the public, of a general museum collec- 

 tion so exhibited that each specimen is attractively presented, 

 descriptively labelled, and, whenever feasible, placed among its 

 natural surroundings. She further points out the advantages 

 of such an exhibition over the old museum type where a stuffed 



» Bull. Chas. Mub. Ill, 1907, 21-29. 



67 



