Journal of 



Applied Microscopy 



and 



Laboratory Methods 



Volume V. DECEMBER, 1902. Number 12. 



The Museum. 



The museum has become so well established in our cities, and is so readily 

 recognized as one of the important factors in popular education, that it is unneces- 

 sary to dwell upon its usefulness. Its development and its construction, both as 

 regards mere mechanical features and educational influence, has not been in all 

 instances equally well advanced, and to-day a complete inspection of all the 

 museums of a country would readily afford a classification as diverse in its ele- 

 ments as the Midway Plaisance at a country fair, and that ideal product of 

 administration in the great cities where investigation goes hand in hand with 

 recreation. 



It seems possible to reduce to a system of approximate exactitude, methods 

 of installation, methods of administration, arrangement of exhibits and, within 

 the limits of moderate artistic variation, architectural design. Perhaps this is a 

 false end to propose. Formal monotony might be urged as a formidable objec- 

 tion to any such scheme, but if the museum at the outset is fundamentally an 

 educational instrumentality, it is not difficult to prove that educational methods of 

 the best type should be very nearly identical. Museums should not, it can be 

 insisted, afford lipiitless chances for the vagaries of exhibitors, but must defer to 

 some establishment of opinion and use intended to secure the best educational 

 results. 



The tendency of educational movements to-day, if the impressions left after 

 reading the papers and addresses of educators are not misleading, is to bring 

 about comparative uniformity in systems and, of course, the fundamental assump- 

 tion is that the human mind is quite similarly constructed and that in its elements 

 all education follows quite similar methods. And so, a uniform museum system 

 can be frankly regarded as desirable, and that such means of education as are 

 proven best in New York and London may also be expected to work the same 

 results in Chilicothe or Canon City. And a system may be elaborated quite 

 independently of financial equality. The wealth of New York can be justly 



(•2069) 



