of nature, and systematic sets of many specimens to display par- 

 ticularly the natural liistory of the district ; while the needless and 

 grievous expense of room and money, caused by the acquisition 

 and preservation of a gallimaufry of unsuitable objects, should be 

 most strictly avoided. These are the very points which are so 

 regularly neglected that it becomes necessary to direct especial 

 attention to them, and to keep the question alive until its import- 

 ance comes to be generally recognised. And that this consumma- 

 tion, so devoutly to be wished, will not be much longer delayed, 

 the recent progress of education, or at least instruction, affords 

 good evidence. As our great universities and public schools have 

 already admitted the importance of biological studies, we may 

 confidently expect that their leading truths, and a conviction that 

 Museums ought to be adapted and devoted to their proper use, will 

 finally prevail. And this spread of knowledge will soon convince 

 the rate-paying public that their rates should be expended with at 

 least some regard to the instruction of the rising generation ; and 

 not, as is too commonly the case, in the cost of a jumble of 

 foreign things, and native curiosities, fitted rather to gratify idle 

 admiration than to satisfy rational curiosity ; repelling too those 

 gifts of desirable specimens, as well as the valuable services of 

 scientific adepts, which would surely, under the proper management 

 of a Museum, be available in its district. 



Instead of such deplorable mistakes — to use the mildest term — 

 your Committee submit that, to a museum jiidiciously constituted 

 and conducted, naturalists would, from time to time and moved by 

 a mere love of the subjects, freely make most useful contributions, 

 seeing that they would be properly appreciated and likely to be use- 

 ful. In a collection of this rational kind teachers could derive and 

 impart to their pupils such a taste and knowledge as would prove 

 permanently profitable to them and to society, and thus be led to 

 realize and herald to the popular mind many of the noble results of 

 the sciences of natural history. In such a museum, too, the farmer 

 and gardener would find many useful records, incliiding illustrative 

 specimens of the insects and their economy which are either benefi- 

 cial or hurtful to plants and animals, and which we cannot hope to 

 encourage or check but through an accui'ate knowledge of their 

 nature. 



Eut it is not by mere or immediate utility that these studies and 

 local museums are to be judged. Ey their monitory aid every rural 

 walk would present a profusion of objects for pleasure and profit; 

 and lessons would be learned of the countless plants and animals, 

 their afi&nities and contrasts, structure and uses, and position 

 in the great system of nature. Then, too, tutors and their pupils 

 would come to look with an intelligent interest to the species which 

 are more or less characteristic of the district or country in which 

 they are found, and thus get a glimpse of the interesting subject of 



