6 Director'' s Anmial Report. 



Chicago museum. Is it, then, likely that if the Bishop Museum 

 was open to the public all the week it would get more visitors ? 



We must be aware that if the exhibition to the public of 

 specimens, however choice or well arranged, were the sole thing 

 which the Bishop Museum attempts, its reputation might have 

 been established locally ; but, except in the tattle of tourists, it 

 would have gone no farther. Its good work, if any, would have 

 been confined to unscientific visitors, the greater part of them un- 

 educated and belonging to what we are accustomed to consider the 

 lower races. In this remote island we might pile up the scientific 

 riches of both the great museums mentioned and science would 

 not have been in any large degree benefitted ; few, very few visi- 

 tors who could truly profit by such treasures could win hither. We 

 must in some way get our wares to a suitable market. Hence I am 

 justified in considering the other side of the museum work far more 

 important than the exhibitionary side. A great part of the visitors 

 for whom the Bishop Museum maintains its exhibition halls at 

 great expense cannot read even the clearly printed labels, and 

 many whose knowledge is greater will not take the trouble to read. 

 Party after party of tourists will sweep through the halls in ten or 

 fifteen minutes, while the patient Chinese will spend hours and 

 even all day here with all his family. Only an observer who is 

 present all the time can form a fair estimate of what intelligence a 

 visitor shows, and it seems to me that two-thirds of the visitors to 

 this Museum have wasted their car fares in coming from town to 

 the Museum. This is especiall}- true of most of the younger school 

 children, who seem to consider a visit to the Museum as only a 

 partial relief from the closer confinement of the schoolroom. Even 

 more so with the Japanese, mostly of the coolie class, who seem to 

 consider it the correct thing to visit the Museum. 



So much for the exhibition side of the work, but it should be 

 noted that in these large museums the scientific staff has no duties 



whatever in this regard after the specimens are in the cases ; an- 



[198] 



