STUDIES ON MUSEUMS AND KINDRED INSTITUTIONS. 325 



tho lirst to carofully consider .surli a ])laii," had dovelopod the princi- 

 ples on which he meant to separate an exhibition collection for visitors 

 from a scientific collection for investigators in the museum of compara- 

 tive zoology, which he was to establish at Cam))ridge in the United 

 States. He actually carried out these plans a few years later. It was 

 a long- time before his ideas were adopted in Europe; but all new 

 museums in the United States, at least, were similarly arranged from 

 that time. In 1881 the U. S. National Museum at Washington adopted 

 as of prime importance the general principle 'Ho place no object on 

 exhibition which had not some special educational value and which was 

 not capable of attracting and instructing a large proportion of the 

 visitors.'"* The U. S. National Museum, therefore, definitely adopted 

 the principles which subsequently determined to a greater or lesser 

 degree the mode of operation of all natural history museums in the 

 United States. Consequently, the visitor to a museum is not tor- 

 mented Avith endless series of like or similar objects, and he need not 

 himself laboriously^ pick out from an excess of material the objects 

 which are to him comprehensible, instructive, or entertaining. They 

 are placed before him without any annoying and tiresome labor on his 

 part. The carrying out of this principle, essential to an exhibition 

 collection, is in general made easy for the American museums by the 

 circumstance that means are willingly furnished them for the purpose. 

 Every month at the New York Natural Histor}^ Museum they place 

 on exhibition those migratory birds which occur in the vicinity at 

 that particular time. This fact is mentioned as a characteristic example 

 of the way in which museum authorities strive to incite the public to 

 a direct observation of nature. A. R. Wallace, the well-known Eng- 

 lish naturalist, as far back as 1809, descri])ed how a public museum for 

 the people should be constituted;'' but such an attempt, or even one 

 approximating it, has not yet been made anywhere, though much has 

 been said and written on the suliject. 



Departnu-iiU for children. — In the large museums, a section ma}'^ 

 generally be found specially adapted to the comprehension of children. 

 All, or nearly all, large libraries also have sections for children; thus, 

 for example, the Brooklyn Museum of Arts and Sciences,'' whose 

 children's department was visited in the year 1902 by more than 

 84,000 children. This children's museum pu))lishes a small illustrated 



«Bil)li()tlK'(iue Miiivfrscllt' ct IJcviU' sniH?e, 47 aniu't', iioiiv. i>('r. XIV, 18(>L', ]>i>. 

 527-40. 



''Proceedings of the V. S. National Mnsenm, IV (ISSl), Washin-jton, 1882. 

 Appendix No. 16. 



cA. R. Wallace, Mnseunis for the People, Mar)nilhin''s< Mitcjitzinc, London, 18(59, pp. 7. 



<^8ee my American Mnsenm Notes, I, pp. 9 and 58 (with illustrations), in Abhand- 

 lungeii und Berichtt' <les Dresdner Museums. Also A Preliminary Account of the 

 Children's Museum, P>edford Park, ojiened December 1(1, 1899, Brooklyn, N. Y., 11 

 pp., 2 figs., and H. P. Shepstone, A Children's Museum, Tlie Qitirer, London, 1901, 

 pp. 1182-8(5, with ligures. 



