28 Ciiwinnati Society of Natural History 



THE MUSEUM SITUATION IN CINCINNATI* 



Nevin M. Fenneman 



In many civilized countries of today (and in all civilized 

 countries of tomorrow) the public museum is an essential ele- 

 ment. It takes its place with the public library, the stage and 

 the public park. These four are the chief resources of organized 

 entertainment and recreation. 



The modern museum is little older than the nineteenth 

 century and there has been more growth in the last fifty years 

 than in all preceding history. The collection of natural objects 

 and curios is as old as civilization, but until recent times such 

 collections ministered to superstition rather than to knowledge. 

 For centuries the bones of extinct animals (mastodon, etc.) 

 were hung on the walls of churches as "giants' bones." This 

 is still the case in certain parts of Europe. Stone axes were 

 similarly exhibited as "thunderbolts" and arrowheads as "ser- 

 pents' tongues." 



One of the oldest natural history nmseums is the Ash- 

 molean of Oxford. In the first half of the seventeenth century, 

 John Tradescant, Kentish gentleman, traveler and botanist, 

 gardener to Charles I, united with great learning a prodigious 

 greed for collecting. His collections were assembled from the 

 ends of the earth and covered the range of museum classifi- 

 cation. His son, John Tradescant, after doubling his father's 

 collections, gave them in 1659 to the famous antiquary, Elias 

 Ashmole. By him they were given in 1682 to Oxford University 

 and became the nucleus of the Ashmolean Museum, well known 

 to scholars and to all who visit Oxford. 



The British Museum may be said to have started seventy- 

 one years later (1753) when Parliament purchased the large 



*ln writing this paper free vise has been made of the proceedings of_ 

 the American Association of Museums, particularly of articles by E. K. 

 Putnam (Brief Survey of American City Museums, vol. viii), C). C. 

 Farrington (The Rise of Natural History Museums, vol. ix), and Paul 

 M. Ilea (various historical and statistical articles). 



