l88 ON CABINETS OF NATURAL HISTORY SPECIMENS, ETC. 



lamentations uttered [by the children of the village school] upon my 

 announcing, at our last lesson before Easter, the necessity of six 

 weeks' absence at Cambridge duties, could possibly have doubted 

 the great interest the children take in these exercises."* 



Nor is it only in schools that cabinets of Natural History objects 

 would be valued as useful loans ; there is no question that they 

 would also be much prized as attractive objects at village soirees and 

 other social gatherings, where adults would have an opportunity of 

 inspecting them. Their educational value would obviously be much 

 increased if, when on loan at any centre, arr intelligent person in 

 the locality would undertake to give a demonstration or lecturette on 

 their contents. 



It will probably be found desirable that the number of specimens 

 in any single loan collection should be small (perhaps not more than 

 twenty) but that the objects themselves, though not necessarily ex- 

 pensive, should be large and attractive, so as to impress the observer 

 by appealing to the eye. Above all, they should be accompanied by 

 full, descriptive, and bold labels. The selection, arrangement, and 

 labelling of the collections could only be satisfactorily carried out by 

 scientific assistants, experienced in museum work. The Central 

 County Institution is therefore evidently marked out as the place 

 where the cabinets should be prepared, and whence they should 

 issue. The scheme would tend to gain for the Institution respect 

 and sympathy in all parts of the county, even from those who might 

 never come within its walls ; while it would probably be the means 

 of obtaining from remote sources donations of local objects of 

 interest. 



But there is no shutting our eyes to the fact that such a scheme 

 would naturally entail some expense. Money, which in this sordid 

 world unfortunately measures all things, will assuredly measure the 

 extent to which extraneous work of this character can be accom- 

 plished. The longer the purse, the wider the work. But the cost 

 of procuring, arranging, and distributing a few small cabinets will, 

 after all, be but small. May we not say that it will be utterly insig- 

 nificant in comparison with the good which it is likely to effect in 

 the schools of the county ! 



Every village school is verily a " workshop of humanity" — the little 

 place where the teachers are busy in shaping the intellect and charac- 

 ter of those who in the course of a very few years will be doing the 



4 Memoir of the Rev. Tolin Stevens Henslovv." By the Rev. Leonard Jenyns, M..\ 

 London, 1862, p. 109. 



