2i8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



proper store-cabinets, and especially of interchangeable drawers, our 

 reduced and over-worked staff finds it less trouble to thrust a new 

 acquisition into a show-case than to make room for it in the confused 

 and crowded study-series. 



It is to obviate such difficulties that I propose the further division 

 of the exhibited series. In this way more specimens can be exhibited 

 for the student and amateur with less trouble and expense, and in a 

 more practical manner, as, for example, on interchangeable trays or 

 frames, which can as needed be removed for the use of the specialist. 

 The student will no longer be disturbed by the loud-voiced pastor or 

 by urchins at hide-and-seek, and the elimination of crowds will permit 

 a saving in floor and cubic space. The public galleries in their turn 

 will be freed from students with their apparatus and from inappro- 

 priate specimens, while such objects as remain can be displayed in a 

 more becoming manner. ; 



It is easy enough to see where we have gone wrong. The advance 

 towards democracy has been too rapid, the revolution too complete. 

 We have thrown open everything to the public, to the public's bewilder- 

 ment and our own undoing. The lot of a curator in a large museum 

 is not altogether a happy one. Surrounded by the treasures that his 

 heart longs for, he must maintain them for the use and enjoyment of 

 others, while, Tantalus-like, he himself is unable to reach them. He 

 consoles himself with the thought that he is a martyr for the good of 

 humanity, and he has not seen how to shift his ever-increasing burden. 

 The suggestions here made will, I believe, benefit the specialist, the 

 student and the man in the street; but the argument most likely to 

 secure their adoption is that they will also benefit the curator. If con- 

 sistently and boldly carried out, they would result in a saving of expense 

 on architecture and installation, so leaving more money for actual 

 work on the collections ; and they would, in the various ways that I have 

 indicated, effect a saving of time, thus permitting the curator to make 

 better use of the material at his command. In this firm belief, I ask 

 for these proposals the serious consideration of the large number of 

 people who to-day are interested in museums. 



