48 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



general and special exhibits. Moreover the force employed is not 

 very large, but when the Fish Exhibit is permanently installed there 

 will be more men available for the routine work. 



Recently published criticisms on the classification and method of 

 arrangement now provisionally adopted in the Museum have shown 

 to a certain extent that there is a misunderstanding as to just how 

 far the Museum is committed to any definite plan. The adopted 

 unit box, in which specimens from the same locality are mounted 

 for exhibition, enables a provisional classification to be adopted. 

 The boxes slide in and out of the cases, and the whole character of 

 the present arrangement can be altered and radically changed in a 

 day. By putting only a few specimens in each box, room is left 

 for future collections supplemental to those now installed. 



Classification and method of installation depend upon various 

 considerations. The material on hand determines the former, and 

 experiment and trial the latter. Without going at all into the sub- 

 ject of Museum classifications in general, or into the future arrange- 

 ment of the National Museum, it seems that every immediate con- 

 sideration demands something like the present one, however much 

 it may be understood or misunderstood from the published bulletins 

 to that effect. 



The broad aim of the present plan is a teleologic classification, 

 one by use rather than by morphology. The comparative method 

 has been adopted in preference to the ethnographic because it is 

 demanded by the nature of the material on hand, and to a certain 

 extent better suited to the American mental habit of analysis and 

 comparison. I will try and illustrate these points by special ex- 

 amples. 



For a few tribes and regions an ethnographical arrangement 

 would answer admirably, viz. , the Eskimos, Zufiians, Moquis, Hai- 

 dahs, Makahs, and our Western and Alaska Indians, but such a 

 general plan would be absurd and but show up the meagerness of 

 our collections from every other region. Picture Corea with two 

 small trays of stuff that can but be vaguely referred to it, Africa 

 with three, and South America with only several cases ! Even our 

 Japanese, Chinese, and Indian collections would hardly admit of 

 such an arrangement. Should Congress become suddenly liberal 

 and place a fund at the disposition of the Museum to enable it to 

 send out intelligent collectors well informed as to the Museum's wants 

 it would doubtless occur in the course of time that an ethnographic 



