Ti E F» O R T 



UPON 



THE CONDITION AND PROGRESS OF THE U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM 

 DURING THE YEAR ENDING JUNE 3U, 1896. 



B*Y 



G. Brown Goode, 

 Assistant Secretary, Smithsonian Institution, in charge of U. S. National Museum. 



I.— GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



By act of Congress passed in 1846 the Smithsonian Institution became 

 the only lawful place of deposit for "all objects of art and of foreign 

 and curious research, and all objects of natural history, plants, and 

 geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United States." 

 These collections have served as a nucleus for the National Museum 

 of the United States. For many years this Museum was supported 

 entirely at the expense of the Smithson fund, and a considerable por- 

 tion of the collections is the property of the Institution through gift or 

 purchase. 



A "museum" has been defined by Professor Huxley as "a consulta- 

 tive library of objects." Not only is the National Museum such a con- 

 sultative library, but it is an agency for the instruction of the people 

 of the whole country. It keeps in mind the needs of those whose lives 

 are not occupied in the study of science, as well as of the teacher and 

 the skilled investigator. Its benefits are extended without cost or 

 reserve to hundreds of thousands of visitors from all jiarts of the 

 United States who enter its halls every year, and through the distribu- 

 tion of the duplicate specimens in the Museum, made up into sets and 

 accurately named, to public institutions in all parts of the country. 



A. — Origin and Development of the Museum. 



The history of the origin and development of the Museum has been 

 detailed in j)revious reports, and was made the special subject of a 

 paper entitled " The Genesis of the National Museum." ' For our pres- 



'"The Genesis of the National Museum," Report of the Smithsonian Institution 

 (U. S. National Museum), 1891, pp. 273-330. 



