Sept., 1896. CASUAL THOUGHTS ON MUSEUMS. 183 



modern times. These things, mivahile dictii, belong to the province of 

 Art, and the province of Art, that is, of human handiwork apart 

 from the work of Nature, is well represented at Bloomsbury ; there, 

 by the munificent generosity, vigilance, and zeal of my friends, 

 Sir Augustus Franks and Mr. Charles Read, an incomparable collec- 

 tion, admirably arranged, of savage garniture has been got together. 

 Why is it not more studied ? 



I am not speaking, however, of man sophisticated and spoilt by 

 the livery of civilisation, but of man in his condition of primeval 

 innocence and beauty. What I want to see in the Natural History 

 and other similar museums are models of different races of men, show- 

 ing their bodily features, their colour, their size, their shape, and so 

 on, by coloured casts and models such as may be seen in some foreign 

 museums — showing what kind of hair they have, what their facial 

 contours are, the relative length of their arms, the fashion of their 

 insteps, feet and toes, and supplemented by skulls and skeletons, the 

 scaffolding upon which the real human contours have been moulded. 

 In this way, and in this way only, shall we learn what are the affinities 

 of man, and perhaps also what are the lines of his pedigree. 



I am, I know, only reflecting the thoughts and wishes of Sir 

 William Flower, who has for years been an advocate of this view, 

 and who, now that he is packing away out of sight the collections 

 of skeletons upstairs' — which are useless as exhibition objects, price- 

 less as they are in the students' room — will have, it is to be hoped, 

 accommodation for exhibiting a really representative and well-arranged 

 collection of casts and preparations of the various forms of man. 

 This long-needed, and, by some of us, long-clamoured-for addition to 

 nmseum collections is now within a measurable distance of being 

 commenced, and there ought to be many ready to help it on. 



We ought to impress, as the German and French Governments 

 impress upon their Colonial Governors, their frontier agents, and their 

 civilian and military officers, that it is part of the duty of such men, 

 in such positions, to help the National Museums in every way. On 

 the other hand, the museums should, as they mostly do, put promi- 

 nently before the public eye the names of their benefactors. If 

 Darwin and Owen deserve statues in the National Museums because 

 of their scientific attainments and reputations, assuredly Hume and 

 Tweedale, Enniskillen and Egerton, Davidson, Godman and Salvin, 

 and many others, deserve to have their munificence and public spirit 

 recorded in " everlasting brass." It is pitiful also to think of the 

 collections which have been sent home and are piled up, unarranged, 

 unnamed, and useless, because it is not ^iven to all curators to have the 

 Furov Sharpei nor the Patientia Woodwavdi Jtmiovis, nor the Pertinaciias 



1 If my accomplished American critic thinks that the fact, the prime fact, that 

 mammals as a class have five fingers and five toes can be illustrated by a long 

 gallery full of mounted skeletons better than by a series directed ad rem as in the Index 

 Museum, he will not make many converts here. 



