i895. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 371 



by a preponderance of conflicting interests, and the result is a disgrace 

 to any body of educated men at the end of the nineteenth century. 

 Beautiful slabs of rock with delicate projecting skeletons of reptiles 

 are left to the tender mercies of the audiences who crowd into the 

 quondatii museum, attending lectures and entertainments. Ugly pieces 

 of wood are nailed across the frames, and occasional pieces of coarse 

 netting testify to at least some qualms of conscience on the part of the 

 Bath Committee. If these precious specimens are to be kept apart 

 from the remainder of the collection and to decorate a lecture hall, 

 they ought to be covered by secure glass cases, which would preserve 

 them from accident and mischievous fingers. Better still if the 

 subscribers who purchased the Moore Collection for the native town 

 of the geologist who amassed it, had the opportunity of making some 

 competent State Commission its permanent trustee, and rescuing it 

 from the vagaries of a mixed local committee. 



Local Museums and Educational Bodies. 



But if men of eminence cannot easily be found to serve as 

 trustees for local museums, or if the local authorities are unwilling to 

 place themselves beneath the official thumb, yet there is another way 

 out of the difficulty, and one which has occasionally been advocated 

 in our own pages. We are reminded of it, not only by the speech of 

 Sir WiUiam Flower, but by some notes on the subject which appeared 

 in the Leeds Mercury for October 20, and which endorse the sug- 

 gestions that we have previously put forward. The kernel of the 

 scheme is closer co-operation between the local museums and the local 

 educational bodies. Many of our great public schools have started 

 museums for natural history, or other purposes, and the services 

 which such museums render to education will hardly be denied by 

 anyone who has read the accounts which have from time to time been 

 published in this Journal. But if museums and other collections are 

 of use to the schools, similarly the schools may be made of use to the 

 museums. Certainly such institutions as Eton and Winchester, or as 

 the numerous Grammar schools scattered about our country, are not 

 by any means so liable to extinction, or even to change, as are the 

 committees or individuals that often have the control of local 

 museums. Consequently, in the words of the Leeds Meycmy : 



" In towns where there exist a local museum and a local 

 Grammar school, it is proposed that the latter siiould ' take over ' 

 the former, have the contents thoroughly overhauled, weeded-out, 

 properly classified, and accurately and succinctly labelled, and 

 ' housed ' in a special building in close proximity to the school. By 

 this means such museums would be made to serve a good educational 

 purpose, and — as in the United States in particular — there should be 

 no difficulty in arrangements being made for the preservation of their 

 * popular ' element by the museum being thrown open to the public 

 on certain days of the week. It is suggested, also, that whatever 

 endowment funds these institutions may be possessed of should be 



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