REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 19 



No scientific iustitution is more thoroughly committed to the work of 

 the diftasiou of knowledge tlum is the Smithsonian Institution, and no 

 department of its activity has greater possibilities in this respecit than 

 the National Museum. 



Tlie benefits of the Museum are extended not only to the specialists 

 in its laboratories and to the hundreds of thousands of visitors from all 

 parts of the United States who pass its doors each year, but to local 

 institutions and their visitors throughout the country, througli tlie dis- 

 tribution of the duplicate specimens in the Museum, which are made 

 u}) into sets, accurately named, and distributed to schools and museums. 



In the next annual report it will be shown how many hundred thou- 

 sands of objects have been thus distributed during the past twenty 

 years. Every museum in the United States has profited in this way, 

 and by its system of exchange the Museum has, while enriching itself, 

 contributed largely to the stores of every important scientific museum 

 in the world. 



Not only are specimens thus sent out, but aid is rendered in other 

 ways. Within the last year many local museums in the United States 

 were supplied with working plans of cases in use in the Museum, and 

 similar sets of plans have been supplied within the past few years to 

 national museums in other countries. 



Not only do tlie people of the country at large profit by the work of 

 the Smithsonian, as made available to local institutions, but also to a 

 very considerable extent directly and personally. 



The curator of each department in the Museum is expected to be an 

 authority in his own line of work, and the knowledge of the whole staff 

 of experts is thus placed, without cost, at the service of every citizen. 



It is much to be regretted that many specialists, intent chiefiy upon 

 the study of certain scientific problems in which they individually are 

 absorbed, are disposed to neglect the claims of the educated public to 

 the enjoyment and instruction which museums afibrd. They do not 

 hesitate to say that scientific museums should be administered for the 

 benefit solely of persons engaged in research. Such men would find 

 no welcome among us. 



The experience of Euroi)e, with its magnificent public museums and 

 the history of the several expositions in the United States, should be 

 quite sufficient to satisfy anyone who has studied the matter, that the 

 museum is an educational ]>ower even more intiuential than the ]>ublic 

 library. 



The venerable director of the South Kensington Museum, the late Sir 

 Phili]) Cunliffe Owen, speaking from an experience of thirty-five years, 

 not oidy in his own establishment, but in the work of building up the 

 score of affiliated museums in the various provincial towns of Great 

 Britain, remarked to the writer: 



Wo ediicato our worlcing people in the public scliools, j?ive tliem a love for refined 

 and l)eaiitiful objects, aud stimulate in tlieui a desire for information. They leave 

 school, go iuto the pursuits of town life, and have no means provided for the 



