The Principles of Museum Administration. 199 



tory. A government commission for the preservation of the monuments 

 of history and art regulates the contents of every church, monastery, and 

 pubHc edifice, the architectural features of private buildings, and even 

 private collections, to the extent of requiring that nothing shall be 

 removed from the country without governmental sanction. Kach Italian 

 town is thus made a museum, and in Rome the site of the Forum and 

 the adjacent structures has been set aside as an outdoor museum under 

 the name of the Passcgiata Archcologica. Similar Govennnent control 

 of public monuments and works of art exists in Greece and Egypt and 

 in a lesser degree in the Ottoman Empire, and for more than half a cen- 

 tury there has been a commission of historic monuments in France which 

 has not only efficiently protected the national antiquities, but has pub- 

 lished an exceedingly important series of descriptive monographs con- 

 cerning them. 



II.— THE RESPONSIBILITIES AND REQUIREMENTS OF 



MUSEUMS. 



A. — THE RELATION OF THE MUSEUM TO THE COMMUNITY. 



1 . The museum supplies a need which is felt by every intelligent com- 

 munity and which can not be supplied by any other agency. The 

 museum does not exist except among highly enlightened peoples, and 

 attains its highest development only in great centers of civilization. 



2. The museum is more closely in touch with the masses than the 

 university and learned society, and quite as much so as the public library, 

 while even more than the last, it is a recent outgrowth of modern ten- 

 dencies of thought. Therefore — 



3. The public museum is a necessity in every highly civilized com- 

 munity. 



jj. — THE MUTUAL RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE COMMUNITY AND THE 



MUSEUM. 



1 . The museums in the midst of a community perform certain functions 

 which are essential to its welfare, and hence arise mutual responsibilities 

 between the community and the museum administrator. 



2. The museum administrator must maintain his work with the high- 

 est possible degree of efficiency in order to retain the confidence of the 

 community. 



3. The community should provide adequate means for the support of 

 the museum.' 



4. A failure on the part of one leads inevitably to a failure on the part 

 of the other. 



'See Chapter III, p. 202. 



