PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 7 



the vast practical benefits to be derived from this museum of research 

 will be at ouce ai^preciated by our people. It is to be the living, tangi- 

 ble encyclopedia of all things and the great x)ublic instructor. Its pur- 

 pose is to shape men's minds for vast projects and to keep pace with the 

 rapid strides we are making. Wasliiugton may be a half a day's jour- 

 ney from the largest center in the United States, but in a few years 

 students from all this continent will come to it to work out their tasks 

 in the National Museum. 



B. P. 



Washington, February 15, 1882. 



Such interest as may have been awakened by the announcement that 

 the country had established a great National Museum, which was now 

 open to the x^nblic, was naturally accompanied by some curiosity as to 

 the manner in Avhich such a huge building shall be filled. It has been 

 alieady stated that the government possesses a vast amount of superb 

 material. There is not a special department in Washington which does 

 not have hidden away collections which, though of great value, have 

 never yet seen the light. Every year the museums abroad send over to 

 this country photographic copies of what is finest in their collections, 

 and, unfortunately, such excellent material has never been available 

 because, before this, there never has been any way of showing it. Take, 

 for instance, a case just now at point, those wonderful discoveries lately 

 made at Thebes. Undoubtedly, before long, accurate pictures of these 

 mummies, their cofiins, the various objects surrounding them, will be 

 made by the Egyptian Government, and will be distributed. Should 

 any such come to us, at once they will find a place awaiting them in 

 this museum. If only the desire was evinced by our government to 

 have copies of the best antiques taken from the Louvre, the British, or 

 tbe Berlin Museum, such plasters would be sent to us. An interchange 

 of gifts between two governments is but an act of simple courtesy. 



If we' cannot exchange in return art subjects, at least we possess an 

 endless number of objects which any museum in Europe would be glad 

 to have. A duplicate of some antediluvian form which paleontologists 

 like a Leidy, a Cope, or a Marsh had found and studied, is the equiva- 

 lent in value of a cast of even the gods struggling with the giants. 

 This possession of duplicates on the part of tlie museum will always be 

 the means of increasing the collection with the choicest of foreign objects. 

 But all these, the factors of a collective i)ower, will be secondary to the 

 action of the government itself. We have commercial agents all over 

 the world, and, familiar as they must be with the countries they live in, 

 if the objects of such a museum as the one at Washington were fully 

 understood by those powers with whom our consuls are in relationship, 

 products both of an industrial and artistic character could be turned 

 into our museum. For many a y^ar to come industrial exhibitions will 



(569) 



