200 J. HOPKIjS^SON — FOEMATION AND 



likely to command, to adopt the plan whicli they follow. But it 

 is within the power of every museum, however humble its pre- 

 tensions, to procure and display such instructive series of objects 

 as may bring the entire range of natural history in a forcible 

 manner before the attention of the public. "Wherever a specimen 

 of some species regarded as a sufficient type of a particular group 

 cannot be conveniently procured, then a model, a drawing, or a 

 tracing from some published figure may be introduced as a sub- 

 stitute Yery limited museums might advantageously 



restrict their collections to little more than a general typical series ; 

 always excepting those special collections which are to illustrate 

 the natural history of their own neighbourhoods."* 



Our honorary member. Sir J. D. Hooker, in his Presidential 

 Address to the British Association at IS'orwich, in 1868, expressed 

 the same ideas, alluding, in illustration of his views, to a museum 

 Professor Henslow had arranged (the Ipswich Museum). " Con- 

 fining myself," he said, "to the consideration of provincial and 

 local museums, and their requirements for educational purposes, 

 each should contain a connected series of specimens illustrating the 

 principal and some of the lesser divisions of the Animal and Vege- 

 table Kingdoms, so disposed in well-lighted eases, that an inquiring 

 observer might learn therefrom the principles upon which animals 

 and plants are classified, the relations of their organs to one another 

 and to those of their allies, the functions of those organs, and other 

 matters relating to their habits, uses, and place in the economy of 

 nature. Such an arrangement has not been carried out in any 

 museum known to me, though partially attained in that at Ipswich ; 

 it requires some space, many pictorial illustrations, magnified views 

 of the smaller organs and their structure, and copious legible descrip- 

 tive labels, and it should not contain a single specimen more than 

 is wanted. The other requirements of a provincial museum are, 

 complete collections of the plants and animals of the province, 

 which should be kept entirely apart from the instructural series, 

 and from everything else." f 



Piofessor Rolleston, in his Presidential Address to the Biological 

 Section of the Association, at Liverpool, in 1870, speaking of the 

 great value of "Local Museums, Local Pield Clubs, and Local 

 Natural Histories " in giving scope for the development of latent 

 scientific talent, said : "A young man who is possessed of a talent 

 for natural science and physical inquiry generally, may have the 

 knowledge of this predisposition made known to himself and others, 

 for the first time, by his introduction to a well-arranged local 

 museum. In such an institution, either all at once, or gradually, the 

 conviction may spring up within him that the investigation of physical 

 problems is the line of investigation to which he should be content 

 to devote himself . . . ." And he defined a well-arranged museum, 

 for this purpose, to be "one in which the natural objects which 



* ' Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 18.55,' pp. 110, 111. 

 t ' Rep. Brit. Assoc, for 1868,' p. Ixii. 



