6 EEPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1899. 



This structure, though built at a time when the conditions required 

 for the proper care and display of large collections of natural history 

 were by no means well understood, is yet admiral)ly adapted to 

 museum exhibition purposes, lending itself readily both to arrange- 

 ment and adjustment, and giving ample light. But though the plan 

 was good, the realization was unworthy. The building is cheap and 

 unenduring, and is, besides, without storage or laboratory facilities. 

 For the area covered, its cost was less than that of any other building 

 ever erected b}^ the Government, and the result is commensurate with 

 that fact. Of its general plan many museum experts have only words 

 of praise; of its unworthiness as the home of the national collections 

 of this great nation there can be no question. 



The Museum building was ready for occupancy in 1881, and it was 

 then deemed adequate for years to come. Yet such has not been the 

 case. The additions to the collections have so far exceeded expecta- 

 tions that more than ten years ago it was already overcrowded, although 

 more than three-fourths of the Smithsonian building is still devoted to 

 the same purposes, and houses some of the most important collections. 



The numh)er of specimens in the Museum is now nearly four and 

 one-half millions, covering every department of knowledge, although 

 strongest in the fields of natural science and ethnology. It is not 

 possible here to name even the most important collections nor the 

 sources from which they have been derived; nor would such a state- 

 ment in any way give an adequate picture of the Museum. It is not 

 the possession of collections, but their availability to the public at large 

 and to students which really does credit to an establishment of this kind. 

 Of this fact no one had a keener perception than Doctor Goode, who 

 was associated with Professor Baird directly in the management of 

 the Museum from 1878 to 1887, and from that 3"ear, upon his appoint- 

 ment as Assistant Secretary, had complete oversight of all the details 

 of its management. He had the most profound desire to make the 

 collections available to the people, to have them arranged so that they 

 might be seen, and to have them labeled so that they might bo instruct- 

 ive. Himself a scientific man and in sympathy with scientific work, he 

 yet regarded the public use of the Museum as its primary object, and 

 well was this policy rewarded by accessions and gifts from this very 

 public, which have gone to enrich not onl}^ the exhibition, but the 

 duplicate collections, thus benefiting both classes for which the 

 Museum was intended. So skillful was his handling of this delicate 

 problem that neither interest ever clashed, and the one but served the 

 other. 



The writer has presented these few brief statements, not with the 

 idea of giving a history of the Museum, nor any sort of adequate 

 recognition to the men who have had it in charge, but simply to show 

 in outline what the purposes of the Museum have been ; how the devo- 



