The MiiscjiDis of the Fiitiire. 249 



while others are engaged in the increase of the collections and their 

 installation. 



I hope and firmly believe that every American community with inhab- 

 itants to the number of five thousand or more will within the next 

 half century have a public library, under the management of a trained 

 librarian. Be it ever so small, its influence upon the people would be 

 of untold value. One of the saddest things in this life is to realize 

 that in the death of the elder members of a community so much that is 

 precious in the way of knowledge and experience is lost to the world. 

 It is through the agency of books that mankind benefits by the toil of 

 past generations and is able to avoid their errors. 



In these da5's, when printing is cheap and authors are countless, that 

 which is good and true in human thought is in danger of being entirely 

 overlooked. The daily papers, and above all the overgrown and uncanny 

 Sunday papers, are like weeds in a garden, whose rank leaves not only 

 consume the resources of the soil but hide from view the more modest 

 and more useful plants of slower growth. 



Most suggestive may we find an essay on Capital and Culture in 

 America, which recently appeared in one of the English reviews. The 

 author, a well-known Anglo-American astronomer, boldly as.serts that — 



Year by year it becomes clearer that, despite the large absolute increase in the 

 number of men and women of culture in America, the nation is deteriorating in 

 regard to culture. Among five hundred towns where formerly courses of varied 

 entertainments worthy of civilized communities — concerts, readings, lectures on 

 artistic, literary, and scientific subjects, etc. — were successfully arranged season 

 after season, scarcely fifty now feel justified in continuing their efforts in the cause 

 of culture, knowing that the community will no longer support them. Scientific, 

 literary, and artistic societies, formerly flourishing, are now dying, or dead in many 

 cities which have in the meantime increased in wealth and population. 



He instances Chicago as typical of an important portion of America, 

 and cites evidences of decided deterioration within sixteen years. 



The people's museum should be much more than a house full of speci- 

 mens in glass cases. It should be a house full of ideas, arranged with 

 the strictest attention to system. 



I once tried to express this thought by saying, "An efficient educa- 

 tional museum may be described as a collection of instructive labels, each 

 illustrated by a well-selected specimen. ' ' 



The museum, let me add, should be more than a collection of speci- 

 mens well arranged and well labeled. L<ike the library, it should be under 

 the constant supervision of one or more men well informed, scholarl}-, 

 and withal practical, and fitted by tastes and training to aid in the edu- 

 cational work. 



I should not organize the museum primarily for the use of the people 

 in their larv^al or school-going stage of existence. The public-school 

 teacher, with the illustrated text-book, diagrams, and other appliances, 

 is in these days a professional outfit which is usually quite sufficient to 



