8o Memorial of George Broivii Goode. 



that in Venice, for a particular school; some that of a country, some that 

 of different countries side b}^ side. 



The art museum, it need scarcely be said, contains, more than any 

 other, the materials which I should like to see utilized in the historical 

 museum. 



Incidentally or by direct intention, a large collection of local paintings, 

 such as those in Venice or Florence, brings vividly into mind the occur- 

 rences of many periods of history, not only historical topography — the 

 architecture, the utensils, weapons, and other appurtenances of domestic, 

 military, ecclesiastical, and governmental routine — but the men and 

 women who made the history, the lowest as well as the most powerful, 

 and the very performers of the deeds themselves, the faces bearing the 

 impress of the passions by which they were moved. 



These things are intelligible to those who are trained to observe them. 

 To others they convey but half the lesson they might, or mayhap only a 

 very small part indeed. 



The historical museums now in existence contain, as a rule, chance 

 accumulations, like too many natural-history museums of the present, 

 like all in the past. I do not mean any disrespect by the word chance, but 

 simply that, though the managers are willing to expend large sums for 

 any specimens which please them, man)^ most instructive ones have been 

 excluded by some artificial limitation. The National Portrait Gallery in 

 London is an instance. Many illustrious men are not represented upon 

 its walls solely because no contemporary pictures of theirs, reaching a 

 certain ideal standard of merit, are in existence. 



So, also, the collection of musical instruments at South Kensington, 

 which admits no specimen which is devoid of artistic suggestions — 

 thus barring out the rude and primitive forms which would give added 

 interest to all. The naturalist's axiom, "any specimen is better than 

 no specimen," should be borne in mind in the formation of historical 

 museums, if not rigidly enforced. 



Another source of weakness in all museums is one to which attention 

 has already been directed, namely, that they have resigned, without a 

 struggle, to the library material invaluable for the completion of their 

 exhibition series. Pictures are quite as available for museum work as 

 specimens, and it is unwise to leave so many finely illustrated books, lost 

 to sight and memory, on the shelves of the libraries. 



That libraries can do good work through the adoption of museum 

 methods has been clearly shown in the British Museum in the exceed- 

 ingly instructive collections which have of late years been exhibited by 

 its librarians, to illustrate such subjects as the lives of Luther and Michael 

 Angclo, and by their permanent display of pictures and documents refer- 

 ring to the history of London. 



The Dyce-Forster collection of autograph documents, letters, and 

 manuscripts is also, in its own way, suggestive. Every large library has 



