82 KEPORT OF ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL MUSEUM 



search; in tlie second, the establishment became a museum of record 

 as well as of research; while in the third j^eriod is growing up the 

 idea of public education. As soon as the material already- within the 

 walls of the Museum can be displayed in accol-dauce with the plan 

 already perfected, the National Museum of the United States will have 

 commenced to fulfill all the demands which are likely ever to be made 

 upon it. 



Mufteums for Record, for Research, and for Education. — These three, 

 co-oi)erative and mutually helpful as they are, are essential to the de- 

 velopment of any comprehensive and philosophically organized museum. 

 Materials are gathered together that they may serve as a basis for 

 scientific thought. Objects, which have served as a foundation for sci- 

 entific study, or which, from tlieir historical significance, are treasured 

 up and preserved from destruction that they may serve purjioses of 

 record, permanent land-marks of the progress of the world in thought, 

 in culture, or in industrial achievement; not only are they records of 

 what has been done in the past, but they constitute the most valuable 

 of all materials for future study. The museum of record, then, is not 

 only an accessory to the museum of research, but an adjunct which 

 accomplishes similar and fully equal results in the same direction. 



The contents of the museum of research and the museum of record, 

 if no other objects are sought but those already mentioned, might with- 

 out impropriety be stored away in vaults and cabinets, inaccessible to 

 any except the specialist. To give them their highest value, however, 

 they should be arranged in such a manner that hundreds of thousands 

 of people should profit by their examination instead of a very limited 

 number, and that they should afford a means of culture and instruction 

 to every person, young or old, who may have opjjortunity to visit the 

 place in which they are preserved. 



Tlie Museum of Record is, in part, a necessary result of the museum 

 of research, but its ultimate origin can without doubt be recognized at 

 a very much earlier period in the treasure-houses of monarchs, such as 

 are found recorded in the histories of very early days. The treasure- 

 house of King Ahasuerus was one of the earliest museums, and the pal- 

 ace of Ptolemy at Alexandria was a prototype of the modern museum 

 of art and industry. With the growth of republican ideas, treasures of 

 this description have became national museums — as in the case of the 

 museums of Saxony, Bavaria, Italy, France, and other European na- 

 tions — which are in the main made up of materials which in former 

 days were kept within the walls of palaces and were inaccessible to tlie 

 public. Ecclesiastical edifices, too, have always been depositories for 

 works of art and curious manufacture. The temples of Athens, Ephesus, 

 and Delphi were art-museums, and so are many European churches of 

 today. With the growth of liberal government, more liberal and comi^re- 

 hensive ideas as to the use and value of such materials have sprung 

 upj and they are now recognized to be the property of the people of the 



