538 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1903. 



soA^eral weeks. On iiccount of tlie wealth of its contents, and the 

 thouohtfiil maimer in which everything- has ])een l)i'ought together 

 and arranged, it is hard to portray it graphically. The collection is 

 extraordinarily complete in typical specimens, as a continuous effort 

 is made to till every gap. Ver}^ little has been published concerning 

 these systematic series. The museum issues annual reports. The 

 installation, arrangement in detail, and labeling still leave something 

 to be desired, as is also true of the cases, which, being of the South 

 Kensington pattern, are somewhat primitive. 



The Oxford Ethnographic Museum seems to me to be in the first 

 rank of establishments of its kind. 1 confined my attention in Oxford 

 to the examination of this museum. 



VII.— BIRMINGHAM. 

 21. CORPORATION ART GALLERY AND MUSEUM. 



Birmingham has a population of more than half a million people. 

 In the rear wing of the council house, built in 1878, in the Greek style, 

 at a cost of $1,250,000, is located the Corporation Art Gallery and 

 Museum. The rooms are large, insufficiently lighted with skylights, 

 and in the largest hall is found a gallery. It resembles in its contents, 

 arrangement, and general mode of administration, the South Kensing- 

 ton Museum in London, which has served as the pattern for many 

 English museums, and which also often lends its collections to these 

 similar institutions. On account of the very great smokiness of this 

 large manufacturing city the interior of the Birmingham museum is 

 blackened and not very attractive. On four days of the week it is 

 open from 10 a. m. to 9 p. m.; on two, from 10 a. m. to 6 p. m, or 4 

 p. m., and on Sundays from 2 to 5 p. m. For several years, practi- 

 cally all over England, the museums have been opened on Sundaj^s. 

 That the exhibits are damaged by such a continuous lighting- is certain, 

 though in this respect it only shares tbe fate of all English and Amer- 

 ican collections. 



In 1900 a university was founded in Birmingham, for both sexes, 

 having an endowment of $3,000,000 and an appropriation by the city 

 and state of $55,000 annually. There is also a library, founded in 

 1861, containing 260,000 volumes, with a yearly expenditure of 

 $87,000, which daily circulates upward of 4,000 volumes. I devoted 

 no time to these two institutions," since the university is hardly 

 organized and the libraiy is not modern. 



«For information see Minerva, XI, pp. 100-102, and J. J. Ogle, the Free Library, 

 1897, pp. 173-182; also F. J. Burgoyne, Library Construction, 1897, pp. 144-146. 



