264 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1901. 



sive exhibit, consisting of thousands of units, would be highly per- 

 plexing to any but the trained museum student and wholly beyond the 

 grasp of the ordinary visitor. Ninety out of every hundred persons 

 would utterly fail to comprehend the arrangement. On the other 

 hand, the straight-a way succession of geo-ethnic units seriated accord- 

 ing to geographic position (tig. 1), though necessarily falling short in 

 some minor respects, presents the great advantage of simplicity and 

 directness. Units of all sizes are accommodated with equal facility. If 

 a group is small a limited space can be assigned; if a group is large, a 

 larger space or even an entire hall can be devoted to it. Compara- 

 tive studies in the various culture branches are carried on with rea- 

 sonable ease, since a particular subject or class of exhibits has. so far 

 as may be, the same relative place in each of the groups. Each cul- 

 ture feature can be studied to best advantage in actual contact with 

 the other features of its own group; that is to say, the pottery of a 

 particular group can be studied better in its own setting of related 

 arts — basketiy, sculpture, wood carving, etc. — than it can if separated 

 from them. 



The geo-ethnic assemblage of exhibits is generally applicable and 

 affords many advantages, giving at once to ordinary visitors and to 

 students a comprehensive notion of the peoples of the world and their 

 culture in their true proportions and relations. It might well be the 

 fundamental arrangement in eveiy general anthropological museum. 



Oulture-Jtistory arrangement. — But this is not all that the museum 

 can do to illustrate the history of man. Perhaps the greatest fact of 

 humanity is its evolution. By the geo-ethnic arrangement just de- 

 scribed we may amply present the peoples of the world, ancient and 

 modern, and yet fail to convey any definite notion of the development 

 of culture, of the progress of arts and industries, and the gradual 

 unfolding of the human mind. These lessons of evolution may be 

 conveyed by assembling artifacts representing the various activities 

 and seriating them according to the stage of culture which they happen 

 to represent. These series may be called culture-history or culture- 

 development series, and, although they are not true genetic scries, 

 since the forms can not be said to have arisen one out of another, they 

 may in a general way stand for the genetic order, suggesting forcibly 

 the manner in which one step necessarily gave rise to another from 

 the lowest to the highest throughout all culture history. 



These culture-history series may be numerous and extremely varied 

 in character. They may be mere synopses, giving only the great or 

 epoch-making steps of progress, or they may embody many objects 

 brought together from every part of the world. The curator may 

 select only those branches susceptible of ready and effective illustra- 

 tion, the steps of progress being represented by the tools, utensils, and 

 devices employed in the practice of the art or by the products where 

 such exist. 



