THE NEW AFRICAN HALL 



177 



had an idea that these animals might be im- 

 proved upon so he began to do a little better 

 work. But it took more time and cost more 

 money so he lost his job. Thus it has been 

 that from the very people from whom we 

 expected the most encouragement in the 

 beginning of our efforts, we got the least. 



I remember very well one time when an 

 opportunity came to do something a little 

 better. A zebra was brought into the 

 Establishment. I had been studying anat- 

 omy and I had learned the names of all the 

 muscles and all the bones. When I saw the 

 zebra I realized that here was an opportunity 

 to do something good and I asked to make a 

 plaster cast of the body. I had to do it in 

 my own time and worked from supper until 

 breakfast time, following out a few special 

 experiments of my own in the process. 

 Nevertheless the zebra was handed out to be 

 mounted in the old way and my casts were 

 thrown on the dump. 



Fortunately the story does not end 

 here. Let us continue it in a quotation 

 from Professor Henry Fairfield Osborn's 

 introduction of ]Mr. Akeley before these 

 societies of artists: 



Now all this is changed and Mr. Akeley is 

 the leader of a new movement. He is the 

 first sculptor in this art, the first taxidermist 

 to approach the art from the standpoint of a 

 sculptor instead of from the standpoint of 

 simply filling out the skin, and his great 

 contribution, that which I am sure will make 

 his name endure, is that every one of his 

 animals is first modeled as if the model were 

 to be the completed thing itself. On the 

 surface of the model he succeeds in expressing 

 the muscles, tendons and bones, just as they 

 appear in the living animal. Then he thins 

 the skin down to the utmost possible degree 

 of fineness and applies it to this piece of 

 finished sculpture so that the skin here, as in 

 the case of the living animal, is drawn down 

 over the beautifully modeled body. 



Another great feature of Mr. Akeley 's work, 

 which makes him a leader in the new move- 

 ment, is that through his courage as an 

 explorer he has been out and studied his 

 types in the wild, often at very great personal 

 risk. The animal of the wild is entirely 

 different from the museum or menagerie 

 animal. The muscles, the vitality make the 

 whole aspect something quite different. It 



is the wild animal that Mr. Akeley will put 

 into the new African hall. 



What has been done so far however 

 to improve museum exhibition is but a 

 small beginning of what can be and 

 should be done, especially in the mu- 

 setims of large cities where the educa- 

 tional need is greatest. Any person who 

 has studied the matter or who is in- 

 terested either as artist or scientist, will 

 agree to this as he walks through the 

 exhibition halls of any of the world's 

 public natural history museums. In 

 few can there be foimd a single hall 

 whose plan reveals a master mind or 

 correlation in the work of several minds. 

 There are chances for the architecture 

 to be out of harmony with the sub- 

 ject or character of the exliibits, for the 

 lighting to be unfortunately managed. 

 Owing to an institution's inheritance of 

 old material and frequent changes of ad- 

 ministration, the exhibits may be hetero- 

 geneous, a little done here by one man 

 with one aim, a little yonder by another 

 with a different aim; they are no doubt 

 crowded and with small appearance of 

 attractiveness. The cases may be out 

 of keeping with the exhibits, perhaps 

 even ranging through many styles and 

 sizes. All this in addition to the fact 

 that the animals were prepared for ex- 

 hibition by some method which gives no 

 illusion of life. 



Mr. Akeley stands foremost among 

 museum men interested in museum exhi- 

 bition — an African explorer, naturalist 

 and sculptor, and the title he modestly 

 claims, "taxidermist" — a man with 

 such capacity for keen observation of 

 animals and such genius in a true repre- 

 sentation of them that he honors the old 

 term taxidermist until whatever lowly 

 origin the word may have had, it is 

 made now to imply a combination of the 

 powers of explorer, naturalist and sculp- 

 tor. By thus remaining loyal to the 



