REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 27 



features iieculiar to itself, developed in response to tlie peculiar ueeds 

 of the people of this continent. It should be remembered that the na- 

 tional collections of every principal European nation are divided into 

 several grouiis, each under separate administration, though often under 

 the general control of some central authority. In France, for instance, ■ 

 most of the museums are under the Ministry of Public Instruction, and 

 in England, to a less extent, under the Department of Science and Art. 



In London, in Paris, in Berlin, and in Vienna the i)ublic collections 

 are scattered through various parts of the city, in museums with dis- 

 tinctive names and more or less independent organizations, and by no 

 means always harmonious with each other. Much of the work which 

 should properly be done by these museums is omitted, because none of 

 them have seen tit to undertake it, and, on the other hand, much work 

 is duplicated, which is perhaps equally unfortunate, collections of simi- 

 lar scope and purjiose being maintained in different parts of the same 

 city. One of the chief objections to such division of effort is that much 

 of the value of large collections in any department is lost by failure to 

 concentrate them where they may be studied and compared side by 

 side. In Washington the national collections are all, without ex- 

 ception, concentrated in one set of buildings. The Army Medical Mu- 

 seum will soon occupy a building side by side with those under the 

 control of the Smithsonian Institution, and this proximity and the long 

 established policy of co-operation between the two institutions will ren- 

 der them, for all practical purposes, united. 



It is iiossible that, in the future, museums of specialties, occupying 

 buildings of their own, may grow up under the control of other Execu- 

 tive Departments of the Government, but it is not likely that they will 

 be very remote from the chain of museum buildings already in j)rocess of 

 formation, and a harmonious system of cooperation will doubtless al- 

 ways be practicable. In the mean time the Smithsonian Institution, as 

 the legal custodian of Government collections, should undoubtedly pre- 

 serve everything which may be serviceable for the development in 

 Washington of one of the greatest museums in the world. It will be 

 neither practicable nor desirable to gather together in Washington col- 

 lections of ancient and mediaeval art, such as those which adorn the 

 capitals of Europe; but a representative series of such objects will un- 

 doubtedly grow up which shall be sufficiently large and well selected to 

 enable Americans to understand these subjects in a general way, to edu- 

 cate the jiublic taste, and to promote, so far as possible, the study of 

 the elements of art and the history of civilization, as well as to forward 

 the growth of the arts of design. This having been accomplished, a 

 large part of the attention of the Museum would naturally be directed 

 toward the exhibition of the geology and natural history of America, 

 and at the same time its natural resources, to the preservation of me- 

 morials of its aboriginal inhabitants, and the exposition of tbe arts and 

 industries of America. 



