REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1908. 11 



public functionaries and of the public generally in furtherance of 

 the above objects. 



" Your committee are further of opinion that in the JNIuseum. if 

 the funds of the Institution permit, might judiciously be included 

 various series of models illustrating the progress of some of the most 

 useful inventions: such, for example, as the steam engine from its 

 earliest and rudest form to its present most improved state ; but this 

 they propose only so far as it may not encroach on ground already 

 covered by the numerous models in the Patent Office. 



" Specimens of staple materials, of their gradual manufacture, and 

 of the finished products of manufactures and the arts may also, your 

 committee think, be usefully introduced. This would supply oppor- 

 tunity to examine samples of the best manufactured articles our 

 country affords, and to judge her gradual progress in arts and manu- 

 factures. * * * 



"The gallery of art, your committee think, should include both 

 paintings and sculpture, as well as engravings and architectural 

 designs; and it is desirable to have in connexion with it one or more 

 studios in which young artists might copy without interruption, 

 being admitted under such regulations as the board may prescribe. 

 Your committee also think that, as the collection of paintings and 

 sculpture will probably accumulate slowly, the room destined for a 

 gallery of art might properly and usefully meanwhile be occupied 

 during the sessions of Congress as an exhibition room for the works 

 of artists generally; and the extent and general usefulness of such 

 an exhibition might probably be increased if an arrangement could 

 be effected with the Academy of Design, the Arts-Union, the Artists' 

 Fund Society, and other associations of similar character, so as to 

 concentrate at the metropolis for a certain portion of each winter 

 the best results of talent in the fine arts.*' 



The important points in this report are, (1) that it was the opinion 

 of the Regents that a museum was requisite under the law, Congress 

 having left no discretion in the matter; (2) that ethnolog}^ and 

 anthropolog}% though not specially named, were A^et as important 

 subjects as natural history; (3) that the history of the progress of 

 useful inventions and the collection of the raw materials and products 

 of the manufactures and arts should also be provided for; (4) for the 

 gallery of art the committee had models in existence, and they pro- 

 posed, pending the gathering of art collections, which Avould of 

 necessit}' be slow, to provide for loan exhibitions by cooperating with 

 art academies and societies. 



In the resolutions which were adopted upon the presentation of 

 this report, a museum was mentioned as " one of the principal modes 



