176 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



them. In the same way a costume of a family, whether composed of 

 two or ten individual suits, might with propriety be regarded as a unit. 

 Collections illustrating the history of a special tribe in a monographic 

 way may also with propriety be kept together. Such a collection would, 

 however, not be assigned to the department of art and industry, where 

 the preferred method of arrangement is evolutionary or progressive, but 

 would rather be made over to the department of ethnography. The 

 teleological plan of arrangement has already been criticised by persons 

 who prefer the more usual system of arrangement by race, a system 

 which is in many respects no less desirable and for some museums 

 is to be much preferred. This system, however, is not at present con- 

 venient for the uses of this establishment. It is probable that these 

 critics have not studied the plan of the classification of the Museum suf- 

 ficiently to be aware that an ethnographic series of objects as well as 

 the teleological series is provided for. It has been publicly suggested 

 that the plan of classification, sketched out provisionally and submitted 

 for consideration in my report for the year 1881, has been settled upon 

 " without allowing the voice and criticisms of scientific men to be heard." 

 In response to this I can only say that this plan, which, it may be stated 

 in passing, has never been anything more than a tentative and provis- 

 ional one, is simply an extension of the plan adopted in the archaeolog- 

 ical division of the Museum previous to 1874, and reported upon favor- 

 ably by a committee of the Board of Regents early in 1875.* 



The department of art and industry must in time necessarily be sub- 

 divided into a number of special departments. At present, and until 

 the material now on hand is properly assorted, such subdivision is not 

 particularly to be desired. There have grown up, however, a number 

 of sections in this department, the result of the accumulation of large 

 quantities of material requiring the care of a special officer. 



A very large part of the material now in the custody of this depart- 

 ment may with propriety be given over to the proposed new curator- 

 ship of races of men. 



Section of Fisheries. — The collection to illustrate the fisheries of North 

 America has been the object of close attention since 1875, when a 

 special appropriation was made by Congress to enable the Commissioner 

 of Fisheries to present a thorough representation of this industry at the 

 Philadelphia Exhibition. The same collection, largely expanded by 

 means of a second appropriation, was sent to the International Fisheries 

 Exhibition at Berlin in 1880, and again in 1883 to a similar exhibition 

 in London. Although a considerable portion of each special appropria- 

 tion was consumed in expensive transportation and temporary installa- 

 tion, yet considerable sums from each were devoted to improving this 

 collection. Expanded as it has since been by gifts from and exchanges 



* See report of Asa Gray and Henry CoppeY, special committee on Museum, in An- 

 nual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for the year 1874 J 

 pp. 126-138. 



