46 THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB. 



" I have read with great pleasure and interest the proposal for establishing an 

 Epping Forest Free Local Museum in Queen Elizabeth's Lodge at Chingi'ord, 

 and wish I could attend the meeting to further the object next Saturday, but 

 engagements have made it quite impossible. I wish to urge upon you the 

 desirability of keeping the collection absolutely to local objects, without anv 

 exception. In a town or county museum, especially if connected with general 

 teaching, an Educational Museum requires other than local specimens, but the 

 object is different in this case, and although the Museum ought of course to be 

 arranged educationally^ if once you open the door to admit specimens not from 

 your own district, as a paragraph in the proposal seems to indicate that you may 

 do, you will never know where to stop." 



The Rev. W. T. Dyne said he came forward as representing the local thirst 

 for knowledge, which they hoped these gentlemen were going to satisfy. It seemed 

 to him that this museum would meet a want that had been felt by three classes 

 of people. They who lived in that district felt the want of such a museum 

 and it promised to be of great educational benefit. The people who came 

 down there from London and hovered about the station, and never got farther off 

 — some of them perhaps wished they would go a little farther off — would be 

 encouraged through this museum to explore the Forest. The museum might 

 also be the means of awakening an interest in children's minds in the beauties of 

 nature in the grand woodlands, and to many members of London natural history 

 societies visiting the district such an institution would be very helpful and 

 encouraging. He moved that : — 



" This Meeting is of opinion that it is desirable (ivith the consent of the Conservators') 

 that a small free Local Museum should be established iri Queen Elizabeth's Lodge, and 

 pledges itself to do all in its power to promote the same." 



Professor C. Stewart cordially seconded the resolution. He felt strongly 

 the very great advantage from many points of viaw of such a museum as it was 

 intended to found in that antique building. He looked upon it, if properly carried 

 out, as no doubt it would be in the able hands in which it was placed, as some- 

 thing which would supply to many inquiring minds a direct and emphatic answer 

 to such questions as, " Wh it a certain thing was, what its life was, what it fed 

 upon, what its enemies were," etc. There were few more innocent pleasures, and 

 delightful pursuits than natural history carried out in the field. Useful though 

 dissection in laboratories and class-rooms might be, it was in the study of the 

 lives of these creatures that the main educational value and interest lay. He 

 wished most heartily for the success of the scheme, which he thought was well 

 conceived, and there could be little doubt that it would be thoroughly and 

 efficiently carried out. 



Mr. J. E. Harting, in the course of his remarks in support of the resolution, 

 said that the aim and object of a local museum such as was proposed to be 

 established was not merely to exhibit rare and so-called curious specimens, but to 

 develop and foster in the minds of all classes of people an intelligent appreciation 

 of the common objects of nature by which they were surrounded, and to pro- 

 vide them ^vith the means of informing themselves about such objects. Mr. Harting 

 could not advocate the indiscriminate collecting, nor the conservation in the 

 museum of specimens of all the birds of the Forest, for instance — such speci- 

 mens would occupy too much space and cost too much money — but collections 

 of invertebrates, such as land and fresh-water shells, with insects, mosses, fungi, 

 etc., were not open to this objection, and could be made interesting and education- 

 ally valuable in a high degree. It should be borne in mind, that the more 



