388 NATURAL SCIENCE [December 
borough demand it, but the operation of the act is dependent upon 
the action of the very people who are most needing instruction by 
museum agency. Not infrequently the act is put into operation to 
gain a library, and a museum of ill-assorted material grows up with 
it, by a system of accretion rather than assimilation. Indeed, it is 
this accretionary growth for want of a defined plan which is the bane 
of provincial museums, and one which the curators themselves are at 
present powerless to prevent. Further, museums are recognised by 
the Educational and Science and Art Departments in that attend- 
ance at a museum by school children and science students is, under 
certain conditions, allowed to count as class attendance, and specimens 
are loaned to them from the Art collection of South Kensington. 
It has followed from the operation of causes such as those in- 
dicated that a type of museum has arisen throughout the country 
which justifies the charge of ill-conceived, lacking in proportion, 
wanting in utility and inadequately supported and staffed. If we 
bear the present conditions in mind, and consider the proposed 
remedies, it is manifest at once that the utmost difficulty would be 
experienced in the attempt to create a federal staff of scientific ex- 
perts on the lines which have been advocated by Professor Petrie. 
The museums are so unequal, their sections vary so strangely, both in 
ratio to one another and in their value, that the attempt to send to 
a series of museums a number of specialists, devoting equal amounts 
of time to each, would result in confusion and failure. 
The first plan suggested in the editorial comment of Natural 
Science of August last is practically that of Professor Petrie, with 
the added proviso that the specialists should be resident, one at each 
museum, whilst the same round of visits was maintained. Other 
considerations apart, municipal jealousies would effectually kill the 
scheme. 
The second plan is delightful by reason of its naive character 
rather than its practicability. The visits of specialists from the 
Government museums are red-letter days to the provincial curator, 
valuable alike for the rare good fellowship meted out to the humbler 
brother in science, for the gratuitous work done, and the remarkable 
stimulus and enthusiasm imparted; but that the arrangement and 
scientific work of provincial museums should be left to the staff of 
Government museums, increased in numbers for the purpose, is a 
plan hardly likely to commend itself to the provincial curator or his 
governors, and even less likely to Parliament, which would need to 
be approached to decide the question. 
There is much in each plan that is admirable, but after all they 
are in the nature of makeshifts rather than a solution of the 
question. What seems to be needed is a thorough grapple with 
the whole question of museum development, and (to borrow a 
