17.— MATTERS CONCERNING MUSEUMS TN SOUTH 

 AFRICA. 



By J. W. B. GuNNiXG, M.D. 



Having been asked on several occasions to give a popular lecture 

 on Museums, I liave latel\- given this subject some closer attention 

 The question often occurred to me, whether improvement was possil)le 

 in the status, the working of cind the results obtained in our museums, 

 whether our museums have sufficient opportunities to press their 

 importance with tlie Governments or the pijwers that be, and whether 

 the authorities take sufficient intelligent and sympathetic interest in 

 these institutions, so as to enable them to carry out sufficient work and 

 to show adequate results — in other words, whether the efficiency of the 

 museums in South Africa is satisfactorily high in ever}' respect. 



AVe are living in a vast, but very thinly populated country; barely 

 one and a quarter millions of white people from Capetown to the Zam- 

 besi. Yet we find nine or ten museums (I hope 1 do not overlook any) 

 — in Capetown, Port Elizabeth, Grahamstown, Kingwilliamstown, 

 Kimberley, Bloemfontein, Pretoria, Pietermaritzburg, Durban and 

 Bulawayo. Among these there are four Government museums pure 

 and simple ; the others are maintained largely b}^ the support of local 

 communities, be they municipalities or scientific bodies, with or without 

 a,n additional grant in aid from the Government, and one (and cer- 

 tainly not the least important) has the enviable position of being closely 

 connected with the famous educational institutions of the town where 

 it is flourishing. I mean the Grahamstown Museum, over which our 

 learned friend and colleague Dr. Schonland so worthily and successfully 

 presides. 



As far as I have been able to ascertain, a sum of between thirty 

 to forty thousand pounds per annum is spent in the upkeep and exten- 

 sions of these institutions, and I have no fear of contradiction when 

 I say that this sum is painfully inadequate foi- the scientific work that 

 requires to be done in our museums: and it seems that with the present 

 depression in South Africa the tendency is rather to diminish these 

 grants than to increase them. When we all agree that it is well-nigh 

 impossible in the near future to increase the amount to be spent in 

 South Africa on our museums, the question arises, Is it possible to 

 find ways and means by which this money could be spent more profit- 

 ably, could bear more fruit for the advancement of science in South 

 Africa, and for the education of the public in general ? 



In oi'der to give a clear answer to this question we ought first to 

 consider what our museums are and ought to be. Our museums consist 

 principall}' of collections of natural histoi-y. Added to this you find 

 historical and ethnographical collections (to which I wish to refer later 

 on more particularly), collections of coins, curio.s, here and there a 



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