158 Naturalist at Large 



to call them by and that name has got to be the right name; 

 otherwise someone reviewing the work done twenty years 

 later interprets that work in terms of another animal and 

 it all comes to naught. 



These, however, are the purely practical aspects of the 

 usefulness of a museum. To my way of thinking, they are 

 utilitarian and infinitely subservient to a point of view set 

 forth by Mr. Eliot in his essay on The Aims of Higher 

 Education: — 



The museums of a great university are crowded 

 with objects of the most wonderful beauty — beauty 

 of form and beauty of color, as in birds, butterflies, 

 flowers and minerals. They teach classification, suc- 

 cession, transmutation, growth and evolution; but they 

 teach also the abounding beauty and loveliness of cre- 

 ation. 



I have often felt the stimulus of the beauty of the things 

 which it has been my privilege to handle. Sir Henry Miers 

 said in a report to the trustees of the Carnegie United 

 Kingdom Trust: — 



It is by means of exhibited objects to instruct, and 

 to inspire with the desire for knowledge, children 

 and adults alike; to stimulate not only a keener appre- 

 ciation of past history and present activities but also 

 a clearer vision of the potentialities of the future. They 

 [and here he is speaking of museums in general] should 

 stir the interest and excite the imagination of the ordi- 

 nary visitor, and also be for the specialist and the 

 student the fruitful field for research. 



