2 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1923. 



States. It was also appreciated that additions would be necessary to 

 the collections then in existence, and provision was made for their 

 increase by the exchange of duplicate specimens, by donations, and 

 by other means. 



The maintenance of the Museum was long ago assumed by Con- 

 gress, the Institution taking upon itself only so much of the necessary 

 responsibility for the administration of this and subsequent additions 

 to its activities as would weld them into a compact whole, which 

 together form a unique agency for the increase and diffusion of 

 knowledge, for the direction of research, for cooperation with depart- 

 ments of the Government and with universities and scientific so- 

 cieties in America, and likewise afford a definite correspondent to all 

 scientific institutions and men abroad who seek interchange of views 

 Avith men of science in the United States. 



Since that time the only material changes in the scope of the 

 National Museum have been (1) the addition of a department of 

 American history, intended to illustrate by an appropriate assem- 

 blage of objects, the lives of distinguished personages, important 

 events, and the domestic life of the country from the colonial period 

 to the present time, and (2) provision for the separate administration 

 of the National Gallery of Art as a coordinate unit under the Smith- 

 sonian Institution. From 1906 to 1920 the Gallery was administered 

 as the department of fine arts of the Museum. 



The development of the Museum has been greatest in those sub- 

 jects which the conditions of the past three-quarters of a century 

 have made most fruitful — the natural history, geology, ethnology, 

 and archeology of the United States — supplemented by many col- 

 lections from other countries. The opportunities for acquisition in 

 these directions have been mainly brought about through the activi- 

 ties of the scientific and economic surveys of the Government, many 

 of which are the direct outgrowths of earlier explorations, stimulated 

 or directed by the Smithsonian Institution. The Centennial Ex- 

 hibition of 1876 afforded the first great opportunity for establishing 

 a department of the industrial arts, of which the fullest advantage 

 was taken, but the department or gallery of the fine arts made 

 little progress, though not from lack of desire or appreciation, until 

 1906, when circumstances led to its definite recognition. The histori- 

 cal and the aircraft series have been greatly augmented within the 

 past few years by large collections illustrative of the World War. 



