32 Cincinnati Society of Natural History 



interest has largeh^ been sacrificed to the intensive work of 

 the laboratory. That the broad Natural History interest has 

 dropped out, even in high schools, is of course an educational 

 crime, but our concern here is with the fact, not with its justi- 

 fication. That such an interest .should exist and be fostered 

 somewhere, at some age, in some grade of school, or in sonie 

 kind of an institution, is a proposition too elementary to argue. 

 It need only be said that the Natural History interest where it 

 exists at all, is generally centered, not in the college or univer- 

 sity, nor even in the high school, but in the public nuiseum. 



But not all university museums are stagnant or decadent. 

 There is, of course, no reason why a successful museum should 

 not be run by a college. The problem is the same as that of 

 the old time Natural History Society. Museums take time 

 and time costs money. An instructor who gets no calls, gets 

 slow promotion, and calls come to the man w^ho investigates 

 and publishes; not to the man who sacrifices his time to his 

 comnmnity. Some of the larger universities and colleges, and 

 likewise a few of the smaller ones have successful museums. 

 Some of these have independent endowment. Harvard has the 

 Agassiz Museum (Natural History) with its $600,000 endow- 

 ment and other sources of income; the Fogg Art Museum 

 similarly sup]Jorted, the Peabody Museum of Archeology and 

 a number of historical or cultural museums, German, Semitic; 

 etc. Yale also has (among others) its endowed Peabody 

 Museum. Beloit, Bowdoin and Smith have endowed art mu- 

 seums which are much used. Welleslej^ supports the Farns- 

 worth Art Museum from the funds of the College. The Uni- 

 versity of Michigan appropriates annually about $7,000, 

 most of it for salaries. The University of Colorado supports a 

 very active museum at about $3,000 a year. Beloit also has its 

 Logan Museum of Archeology. The University of Iowa has 

 just erected a museum buikfing costing (with cases) $450,000, 

 and the University of Indiana has done almost the same. But 

 none of these successful college museums are looked upon as 

 departmental apparatus. None depend for curatorship on 

 voluntary effort and spare time. 



