REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 7 



Museum lias undertaken more fully tbe additional task of gathering 

 collections and exhibiting them on account of their value from an 

 educational standpoint. 



During the first period the main object of the Museum was scien- 

 tific research ; in the second, the establishment became a museum of 

 record as well as of research; while in the third period has been added 

 the idea of public education. The three ideas — record, research, and 

 educatioD — cooperative aud mutually helpful as they are, are essential 

 to the development of every great museum. The National Museum 

 endeavors to promote them all. 



It is a museum of record^ in which are preserved the material founda- 

 tions of an enormous amount of scientific knowledge — the types of 

 numerous past investigations. This is especially the case with those 

 materials that hsSwe served as a foundation for the reports upon the 

 resources of the United States. 



It is a museum of research, which aims to make its contents serve in 

 the highest degree as a stimulus to inquiry and a foundation for scien- 

 tific investigation. Research is necessary in order to identify and group 

 the objects in the most j)hilosophical and instructive relations, and its 

 officers are therefore selected for their ability as investigators as well 

 as for their trustworthiness as custodians. 



It is an educational museum, through its policy of illustrating by 

 specimens every kind of natural object and every manifestation of 

 human thought and activity, of displaying descriptive labels adapted 

 to the popular mind, and of distributing its publications and its named 

 series of duplicates. 



In conclusion let us review what seems to have been definitely accom- 

 plished since the time of reorganization in 1881. 



The definite steps of progress may be summarized as follows: 



(1) An organization of the Museum staft' has been effected, efficient 

 for present purposes and capable of expansion and extension as occa- 

 sion may require, and many capable museum experts have been trained 

 for work in other institutions. 



(2) Through the agency of the staff the materials in the Museum, 

 fhe accumulations of nearly half a century, have been examined, clas- 

 sified, and brought under control aud arranged in such manner as to 

 insure their sefety and make them available for study. 



(3) The collections have been increased eighteenfold. 



(4) A considerable beginning has been made toward the development 

 of a well-labeled and eflectually installed exhibition series, available 

 for the instruction of the public. 



(5) A thorough study of the organization and systems of classifica- 

 tion in other museums throughout the world has been made, the results 

 of which are beginning to appear in the work of the Museum staff and 

 which will be made available for other institutions from time to time 

 through the luiblications of the Museum. 



