COLLECTIONS OF RELIGIOUS CEREMONIALS. 761 



philanthropic point of view, yet possesses a certain interest, in that it 

 enables the i)resentation of many creeds by their own professors. 



Of the exhibits I shall not speak in detail, as the congress has set 

 apart a special day for visiting them, yet I may be pardoned for making 

 a few general statements covering the exhibit in the Smithsonian sec- 

 tion.* Some time before the plans for the National Museum exhibit 

 were under way, the purpose of forming a section devoted to compara- 

 tive religion luul been deiinitely announced. It was accordingly decided 

 to prepare a type exhibit for the World's Fair. This exhibit suffered 

 under limitations as to space and time for preparation. It was further 

 decided to limit the religions shown to a selection of the nations inhab- 

 iting the Mediterranean basin. This selection had a conscious signifi- 

 cance already referred to in the discussion of the Musee Guimfet, which 

 is of considerable practical value for the advance of the study of religions 

 in America. The Mediterranean basin has been the seat of the civili- 

 zations of the modern western world. Tlie art, philosophy, and religion 

 of Europe and America arose among the ancients of that region, and 

 the highest ideals even of the moderns are still to be found in the 

 books and the works of art of those ancient peoples. In an attempt, 

 therefore, to introduce the study of religions into universities, or to 

 create departments of religious ceremonial in museums, it behooves us 

 for the nonce to put aside the American Indian, and the Central Afri- 

 can, and to begin at least with those religions whose history has an 

 interest for all men of our day, the knowledge of which should really 

 become a part of general culture. 



The exhibits comprised the following religions: Assyro-Babylonian, 

 Jewish, Oriental Christian, Mohammedan, Greek, and Roman. 



It is expected that in the coming year a collection of religious history 

 and ceremonial institutions will be installed in the National Museum. 

 For the present, museum economy will render it necessary that objects 

 relating to the religion of the aborigines of North America be retained 

 in the general ethnological exhibits, though they will be carefully 

 differentiated. 



With that exception the museum collections already referred to, those 

 on exhibition at the Exposition, and some recently acquired, Avill be 

 labeled and installed as soon as practicable. So fully is the imjiortance 

 of this subject recognized that, in spite of the great pressure for floor 

 space at the Museum, adequate room will be provided, although it will 

 require the retiring of some interesting collections. 



Eeligion consists in what men believe concerning the supernatural, 

 and what they do in consequence of that belief, in creed and cult. 



It is the cult which most readily lends itself to museum exhibition, 

 and this will be taken up first, although there are devices by which 

 even creeds may be shown in museum collections. 



" See Appendix 4. 



