1894. NOTES AND COMMENTS. 169 



amusement among the mass of the people, and, secondly, to afford 

 the scientific student every possible means of examining and studying 

 the specimens of which the museum consists." Sir W. Flower 

 maintains that most local museums should confine themselves to the 

 former function, and that only in national museums can the fulfilment 

 of both functions in fairly equal proportions be expected. In 

 connection with what we have said above on the deficiencies of 

 museums, the following passage is of interest. — " As the actual 

 comparison of specimen with specimen is the basis of zoological and 

 botanical research, and as work done with imperfect materials is 

 necessarily imperfect in itself, it is far the wisest policy to concentrate 

 in a few great central institutions, . . .all the collections which 

 are required for the prosecution of original research," especially 

 collections " containing author's types . . . which must be appealed 

 to through all time to settle vexed questions of nomenclature." 



The address concludes with a plan suitable for any museum that 

 proposes to follow up what is here called " the new museum idea." 

 The chief features in this plan are the separation of the reserve col- 

 lections from those intended for public exhibition, while retaining 

 them in convenient proximity, and the separation of the officers' 

 studies from the galleries in such a manner that they can stay at 

 their work after the museum has been closed to the public. In a 

 footnote, dated November 2, 1893, i* is stated that a plan which 

 "closely resembles" this "in essential features'" has been found 

 among the papers of the late Sir Richard Owen. It also has the 

 advantage that the recent and extinct forms of each group, though 

 not absolutely incorporated into one series, are brought into nearer 

 relationship to each other than they are at present in the British 

 Museum. We shall never cease to deplore that this plan of Owen's 

 was not adopted, and we learn with interest that it is to be made 

 public in the life of the great Anatomist, already announced by Mr. 

 John Murray. 



The House Beautiful. 



But perhaps the most interesting paper contained in this report 

 of the Museums' Association is that in which Mr. William White, the 

 curator of the Ruskin Museum at Sheffield, gives an account of Mr. 

 Ruskin's views on the function of museums ; and the paper is 

 interesting, not because the ideas in it are new, but because they 

 were, for the most part, put forward by Mr. Ruskin so many as 

 thirty years ago, and yet are a long way in advance of what has 

 since been attempted in the larger number of museums. Indeed, so 

 lofty is the height from which Mr. Ruskin looks at these matters, 

 that we doubt whether even remotest ages will ever see some of his 

 ideas put into practice. So long, for instance, as brains and body 

 require proper nourishment, so long will the students and officials at 



