XXVI. 



THE FORMATION AND ARRANGEMENT OF PROVINCIAL 



MUSEUMS. 



By John Hopkinson, F.L.S., F.G.S., etc., Hon. Sec. 



Bead at Watford, Ibth March, 1881. 



The establishment of a Museum having been decided upon by 

 the Council of our Society, and the first step towards the forma- 

 tion of one having recently been taken by the purchase of a show- 

 case, which now contains such donations as have already been 

 received, I have thought that it might be well, at the commence- 

 ment of our undertaking, to give expression to certain ideas on the 

 formation and arrangement of provincial museums which may 

 perhaps be of some practical use. 



Museums may be divided into three classes, viz. National, 

 Provincial, and Educational, and although an educational museum 

 may be combined with a national or with a provincial museum, 

 it is impossible successfully to combine a provincial with a 

 national, or, as it may also be tenned, an accumulative museum, 

 and yet this is the very thing which is most frequently attempted 

 and which often renders an otherwise valuable collection practically 

 useless. 



A national museum is one which, strictly speaking, should aim 

 at illustrating the entire national productions, antiquities, and fine 

 and industrial arts of the nation, but this term, as usually applied 

 to museums, has a much more extensive signification, the national 

 museum of a country legitimately containing objects from all parts 

 of the world. Such is oiir British Museum, and it is the only 

 really national museum we can have, for, as Dr. Giinther has said, 

 " however great, however large, a country or a nation may be, it 

 can have, in reality, only one national museum truly deserving of 

 the name." * 



All museums, it may be said, are, or should be, educational, but 

 by this term is here meant only such as are intended to illustrate 

 certain special branches of study, and which are usually additions 

 to the teaching capabilities of educational institutions. As good 

 examples of educational museums in London may be mentioned the 

 Museum of Practical Geology in Jcrmyn Street, the Museums of 

 the Science and Art Department at South Kensington and Betlmal 

 Green, and the Museum of the College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn 

 Fields. The Museum of Economic Botany in Ivew Gardens is an 

 excellent example of a strictly educational museum having a special 

 object. 



* Presidential Address to the Biological Section of the British Association, 

 Swansea, 1880. ' Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1880,' p. 593. 



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