42 



NATURAL SCIENCE. 



July, 



To pass on to the limits which should be assigned to the col- 

 lections. Undoubtedly, in the Botanical and Zoological sections, 

 especial prominence should be given to the local flora and fauna, but it 

 is not advisable to limit the scope quite so narrowly, for boys come from 

 all parts of the kingdom, and it is, for the most part, at their homes 

 and during the holidays that most of their unaided work as naturalists 

 is carried on. During term there are so many rival attractions, and 

 such a love of athletic distinction, that many good naturalists forsake 

 woods and meadows for the cricket field. It is therefore better, in 

 these subjects, to extend the collections to all British animals and 

 plants, and to drazv the line unflinchingly at this point. If a Museum is 

 to educate at all, the faculty of observation claims its attention before 



Fig. I — External View of Museum of Charterhouse School, 

 From a Photograph by^ GODALMING. [Messrs. W. &A.H. Fry, Brighton. 



all others, and if the boy is not taught how and what to observe in 

 the small world immediately around him, the man assuredly will not 

 observe Nature truly in the enlarged world of after life. It is a 

 difficult and often an ungracious task to say " no " to some generous 

 offer of exotic lepidoptera, foreign birds, &c., to say nothing of heads 

 of big game, stuffed crocodiles, and other " white elephants," but the 

 refusal is absolutely necessary if any reasonably representative collection 

 is to be set forth in the limited space at the disposal of any school. Let 

 it, however, be at once stated that there is no objection to receiving 

 foreign specimens of species which do occur in Britain, but let their 

 locahty be clearly stated on the labels, and also the fact that they are 

 of British occurrence. Exception may, perhaps, be made in the series 

 of special types where British species are inconveniently small ; but 



