772 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1893. 



observation lias beeu reduced to atrophy by the usual public-school 

 methods. A distinguished English authority suggests to school boards, 

 high and Ioaa', "that the teaching is out of all proportion in excess of 

 the training, the latter being with difficulty weighed in the scales of 

 school examination." Agassiz said: "The pupil studies nature in the 

 schoolroom, and when he goes out of doors he can not find her/' I 

 shall never forget the bitter disappointment 1 felt as a boy, on my first 

 journey, when the stage driver pointed out to me with his whip the 

 dividing line between the States of Maine and New Hampshire. There 

 was no colored line! There was no change in the color surfaces of the 

 two sides! I felt grieved and rebellious at the imposition which had 

 been practiced upon me. Nor can I ever forget the surprise — my delight 

 was distracted by the novelty of my ignorance — when my father, in one 

 of the i^eriodic family drives, chanced to remark, on a shore road near 

 Portland, that the water expanse before us was the Atlantic Ocean, Had 

 he said that one of the islands in sight was Madagascar, I should not have 

 been more astonished. Every one can recall experiences of a similar 

 nature, and I venture to believe that these two truthful incidents are 

 l)ertinent examples of the results of pernicious educational methods 

 universal forty years ago and by no means uncommon to-day — book- 

 cramming, with no reference to the objects or illustrations in sight from 

 the windows, or within stone's throw of the school door. This unde- 

 niable condition of many schools in the land emphasizes the necessity 

 of museums where the objects may verify some of the lessous learned 

 at school. The book method of education has almost paralyzed ijublic 

 desire for museums, and the result has been that the museum, when 

 instituted, has been in the interest of specialists, and mainly through 

 their efforts. The whole animal kingdom may be epitomized, in a man- 

 ner, between the covers of a single book; the specimens properly to 

 illustrate such a book would require a good-sized hall in which to be 

 displayed. 



The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has liberally provided a way 

 in which every town may have a collection of books free to all. So 

 successfully has the enactment been carried out that only 3 per cent of 

 the State's population is unprovided with a free public library, and 

 this remnant will soon be favored with its public stock of standard 

 books. This is all very well, and in the right direction ; but is it not 

 possible to create a similar public sentiment for the establishment of 

 some kind of a museum as a proper accompaniment of the library? 

 If there is the slightest necessity for a museum in the crowded metrop- 

 olis, why does not the same necessity hold good for the small town or 

 village? In the Public Libraries Act of England and Ireland (1855), 

 provision is made for the erection of buildings " suitable for public 

 libraries or museums, or both, or for schools of science and art; " and 

 a similar act for Scotland (1867) provides for the erection of buildings 

 " suitable for public libraries, art galleries, or museums, or each, respec- 

 tively." Every community, borough, district, or parish exceeding five 



