6 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



A new perioil now began. The storage rooms and exhibition halls of 

 the Smithsonian bnilding were already overflowing with the accumula- 

 tions of thirty years, and the small number of persons employed in caring 

 for them were overburdened and unable properly to perform the requi- 

 site work. The limits of the collections had become wider, and a new 

 and broader classiti cation was found to be necessary. The growth of 

 the country in wealth and culture had led to the establishment of many 

 local museums, and the educational influences flowing from these and 

 from the Centennial Exhibition caused a demand for more efficient 

 niethods of museum administration. The exhibition of 187G had been 

 indeed an event of great educational importance to the people of the 

 Tnited States; and not the least of its good works was the lesson it 

 taught as to the possibilities for good in public museums. 



The objects which at the close of the Centennial Exhibition were 

 given to the United States for its National Musem were of large intrin- 

 sic value, and were also very important from the fact that the necessity 

 of caring for them led to the erection of a large building for the expan- 

 sion of the Museum itself. 



In the early years Professor Baird, then assistant secretary of the 

 Institution, with two or three assistants, had been able to give all nec- 

 essary attention to the care of the collections, and the Museum had 

 never been formally divided into departments. When the reorganiza- 

 tion was made In 1881, under the immediate care of the present assist- 

 ant secretary, the diversity of the collections made it necessary to 

 establish a number of departments, each of which was placed in charge 

 of a curator. 



There are now twenty eight organized departments and sections in 

 the Museum, the larger number of which are in charge of specialists 

 who receive no salary from the Museum. There are also seven admin- 

 istrative offices. 



SPECIAL EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM. 



The history of the National Museum may be divided into three 

 periods: 



First, the period from the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution 

 to 1857, during which time specimens were collected solely to serve as 

 materials for research. No special effort was made to exhibit them to 

 tlie public or to utilize them, except as a foundation for scientific 

 description and theory. 



Second, the period from 1857, when the Institution assumed the cus- 

 tody of the "National Cabinet of Curiosities," to 1876. During this 

 period the Museum became a place of deposit for scientific collections 

 which had already been studied, these collections, so far as convenient, 

 being exhibited to the public and, so far as practicable, made to serve 

 an educational purpose. 



Third, the present period (beginning in the year 187G), in which the 



