Mtiseiini-Historv and Museums of History. 7^ 



Tlie Colunihiau Museum andTurrell's Museum, in Boston, are spoken 

 of in the annals of the day, and there was a small collection in the attic 

 of the statehouse in Hartford. 



The Western Museum, in Cincinnati, was founded about 18 15 by 

 Robert Best, M. D., afterwards of Lexington, Kentucky, who seems to 

 have been a capable collector, and who contributed matter to Godman's 

 American Natural History. In 18 18 a society styled the Western 

 Museum Society was organized among the citizens, which, though 

 scarcely a scientific organization, .seems to have taken a somewhat liberal 

 and public-spirited view of what a museum should be. With the esta]> 

 lishment of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 18 12, 

 and the New York Lyceum of Natural History, the history of American 

 scientific museums had its true beginning. 



The intellectual life of America is so closely allied to that of England 

 that the revival of interest in museums and in popular education at the 

 middle of the present century is especially significant to us. The great 

 exhibition of 185 1 was one of the most striking features of the industrial 

 revolution in England, that great transformation which, following closely 

 upon the introduction of railroads, turned England feudal and agricul- 

 tural into England democratic and commercial. 



The great exhibition marked an epoch in the intellectual progress of 

 English-speaking people. "The great exhibition," writes a popular 

 novehst, and a social philosopher as well, "did one great service for 

 country people. It taught them how eas}^ it is to get to London, and 

 what a mine of wealth, especially for after memory and purposes of con- 

 versation, exists in that great place." 



Under the wise administration of the South Kensington staff, a great 

 system of educational museums has been developed all through the 

 United Kingdom. 



Our own Centennial Exhibition in 1876 was almost as great a revela- 

 tion to the people of the United States. The thoughts of the country 

 were opened to many things before undreamed of. One thing we may 

 regret — that we have no such widespread .system of museums as that 

 which has developed in the motherland with South Kensington as its 

 administrative center. England has had nearly forty years, however, and 

 we but thirteen, since our exhibition. May we not hope that within a 

 like period of time, and before the year 19 14, the United States may have 

 attained the position which England now occupies, at least in the respects 

 of popular interest and substantial governmental support? There are 

 now over one hundred and fifty public museums in the United Kingdom, 

 all active and useful. 



The museum systems of Great Britain are, it seems to me, much closer 

 to the ideal which America should follow, than are those of either France 

 or Germany. They are designed more thoughtfully to meet the needs of 



