1915] The Ottawa Naturalist. 33 



A CHEAP CASE FOR SMALL MUSEUMS. 



By Harlan I. Smith. 

 Geological Survey, Ottawa. 



For many years we have heard complaints from museum 

 curators and others interested in museums, that there was not 

 sufficient money available for the purchase of specimens, the 

 erection of a desired building, and the making of cases. It is 

 trtie this complaint was not always, though often, made as a sort 

 of apology for the lack of arrangement and labelling, the presence 

 of dirt, and the failure of the museum to be useful to the com- 

 munity, or even interesting to the average visitor. Some mu- 

 setims spend for specimens thousands of dollars annually, for 

 many years in succession, while their exhibition halls lack suf- 

 ficient labels of all kinds, and especially the general divisional 

 labels and case labels which are among the first needed to make 

 a museum useful to the public. It is like paying $5.00 for a 

 volume and not reading it when it were better to buy a five cent 

 book to read. It is known by actual experience that a few 

 hundred dollars invested in lumber, stain and the services of a 

 painter, will remove this main stigma of faulty labelling from a 

 fairly large museum. After all, a museum had better be with- 

 out many specimens than to be lacking in essential labels. One 

 specimen, such as a diamond or an elephant, may cost more than 

 thousands of equally instructive specimens, such as a piece of 

 coal or a kernel of corn, and will actually use up funds needed to 

 completely label a large part of a great museum or an entire 

 small one. Many institutions waste years in discussing what 

 color, and weight of cardboard, or other material is to be used 

 for labels, and many years pass before any exhibit is adequately 

 labelled; it would be better to attach labels — either written in 

 longhand, or by typewriter, so that the present generation may 

 get useful service from the exhibit. Such tentative labels 

 may be replaced whenever a better kind is decided upon. 



Waiting for a fire-proof, or permanent, or larger building 

 is certainly a waste of time. I once knew of a professor who 

 complained that he could not teach a number of interested 

 students because he had no class room, but I believe I can recall 

 hearing of certain great teachers of antiquity, who taught their 

 disciples by the road side, without either class room or place to 

 lay their heads, and this idea also applies to museums, for after 

 all, the whole out-of-doors is the best museum. A comer in 

 every school-house may be a museum; a nook in every Board 

 of Trade building may serve the same purpose ; even the Sunday 



