BULLETIIV 



OP 



THE CHARLESTON MUSEUM 



Vol. 9 CHARLESTON, S. C, MARCH, 1913 No. 3 



THE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY 

 OF THE CHARLESTON MUSEUH 



The pages of the Bulletin contain many accounts of investi- 

 gations which have carried the history of the Museum to in- 

 creasingly remote times, until the recovery by Mr. John Bennett 

 of the original prospectus as printed in the newspapers of March, 

 1773, established the fact that this museum is not only the old- 

 est in America, but that it antedates by more than a quarter of 

 a century the next oldest museum existing in this country. It 

 is, therefore, fitting that our one hundred and fortieth anniver- 

 sary should be an occasion of pleasant retrospection and of in- 

 spiration for future effort. 



It is gratifying that this anniversary finds the Museum larger, 

 better organized, and more actively engaged in service to science 

 and to the people than at any previous period of its long and 

 honorable history. It may fairly be said that the general con- 

 ception of the work of museums has undergone a significant 

 change in the past twenty-five years which has resulted in a de- 

 velopment previously unattained. It may also seem that the 

 reorganization and accelerated growth of the Charleston Museum 

 in the last decade is due to this same new conception of the proper 



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