507. 



I07 



III. 



Two Views on Museums. 



As we go to press the Museums Association begins its meeting at 

 Glasgow, under the presidency of Mr. James Paton. Besides 

 visiting the Corporation Galleries, the Kelvingrove Museum, and the 

 Hunterian and other museums in Glasgow, members will have an 

 opportunity of seeing the new museum at Perth, an account of which 

 has been published in our pages (vol. viii., pp. 41-45). There is a 

 strong local committee and abundance of hospitality, so that the 

 meeting seems likely to be an enjoyable as well as a profitable one. 



No doubt some of the numerous debatable questions that have 

 been raised by Sir Henry Howorth in our pages during the past year 

 will come up for discussion at this meeting, and we are glad to furnish 

 as a contribution to the discussion the following note by so well- 

 known a representative of American Museums as Mr. F. A. Lucas, 

 of the National Museum, Washington. As an alternative to the 

 opinions of Mr. Lucas, we venture to recommend to the assembled 

 curators a small pamphlet that has just been sent to us by Professor 

 Alphonse L. Herrera, of the National Museum in Mexico, to whose 

 other attempts at reform we again draw attention in our Notes and 

 Comments. 



L — The Skeleton in the Museum. 



In the June number of Natural Science Sir Henry Howorth 

 objects to the exhibition in museums of what Ruskin, to use his 

 own choice diction, terms "Bones, guts, or any other charnel-house 

 stuff." It would hardly seem necessary to protest against this snap 

 judgment, which reminds one of the dictum of George Francis Train, 

 " One man right, forty millions wrong," but I cannot refrain from 

 saying that, if Sir Henry sees no good in a room full of skeletons, 

 there is something wrong with the skeletons — or himself. Personally, 

 I hold to the belief that all knowledge save that which tends directly 

 to the procurement of bread and butter is a misfortune, but, being in 

 a minority, and in a country where the majority is supposed to rule, I 

 endeavour to adapt myself to circumstances. Such being the case, I 

 try to make the exhibition series of the Department of Comparative 

 Anatomy furnish the illustrations, and the labels the text of a work 



I 2 



