NATIONAL MTTSEUM BrTTLDINOS. 279 



tions, but for many years the Museum was supported entirely at tlie expense of the 

 Smithsonian fund, and a considerable portion of the c:olle(!tions is the property of the 

 Institution. 



Professor Huxley defines a nmseum as "a consultative library of objects." The 

 National iNIuseum is such a consultative hbrary, and it is a great deal more. It is an 

 agency for the instruction of the people of the whole country, and it keeps in mind 

 the needs of persons whose lives are not occupied in the study of science, as well as 

 those of the professional investigator and teacher. 



Its benefits are extended without cost or reserve fo hundreds of thousands of 

 visitors from all parts of the I'nited States who pass through its doors each year. 



It is also accessory to jiublic education through the distribution of the duplicate 

 specimens in the Museum, which are made up into sets, accurately named, and 

 given to public institutions in all parts of the country. 



The history of the Museum is divided into three i)eriods: First, that from the 

 foundation of the Smithsonian Institution to 1857, during which time specimens 

 were collected purely and solely to serve as materials for research, no special effort 

 having been made to publicly exhibit them or to utilize them except as a foundation 

 for scientific description and theory. Second, the period from LS57, when the Insti- 

 tution assumed the cu.stody of the "National Cal)inet of Curiosities," to LS76. Dur- 

 ing this peri(xl the Museum became a place of deposit for scientific, material which 

 had already been studied, this material, so far as practicable, being exhibited to the 

 public, and thus made to serve an educational purpose. Third, the present period, 

 beginning in the year 1876, during which the Museum has entered upon a career of 

 active work in gathering collections and exhibiting them on account of their edi;ca- 

 tional value. 



During the first i)eriod the main object of the Museum was scientific research; in 

 the second the establishment became a museum of record as well as of research; 

 while in tiie third period there is growing up also the idea of public education. 



The three ideas, record, research, and education, cooi)erative and mutually helpful 

 as they are, are essential to the development of every great nmseum. The National 

 Museum endeavors to promote them all. 



It is a museum of record, in which are preserved the material fjundations of an 

 enormous amount of scientific knowledge, the types of numerous ])ast investigations. 

 This is especially the case with tliose materials that have served as a foundation for 

 the reports upon the resources of the United States. 



It is a nmseum of research, which aims to make its contents serve in the highest 

 degree as a stimulus to iiKjuiry and a foundation for scientific investigation. Research 

 is necessary in order to identify and group the objects in the most philosophical and 

 instructive relations, and its oHicers are therefore selecte<l for thcii- al)ility as investi- 

 gators as well as their trustworthiness as custodians. 



It is an educational nmseum, through its policy of illustrating by specimens every 

 kind i)i natural object and every manifestation of human thought and activity, of 

 displaying descriptive labels adapted to the popular mind, and of distributing its 

 puI)lications and its named series of duplicates. 



The collections are installed in part in the Smithsonian building and in part in 

 the large Ijuilding adjacent, covering 2", acres of ground, which was erected in 1881 

 to afford temporary ai'conmiodations for the overflow until such time as an adequate 

 new building could be constructed. 



The intrinsic value of such collections as these can not well be expressed in figures. 

 There are single specimens worth hundreds, others worth thousands, of dollars, and 

 still others which are unique and priceless. Many series of specimens which owe 

 their value to their completeness and to the labor which has been expended on them 

 can not be rei>la(ed at any i)rice. The collections at a forced sale would realize 



