10 



But there never can be more than a very few establishments 

 on anything like the scale of the British Museum, with the 

 zoological portion of which Dr. Gray is connected, and from 

 which his experience is derived. If, therefore, we multiply 

 Museums, and they cannot be multiplied too much, it is clear 

 the generality of them must aspire to something less than a 

 collection of all the productions of nature, animate and inanimate. 



What, then, is to guide us in the formation and arrangement 

 •of those smaller Museums, which we may Avisli to set up in 

 provincial tov/ns and villages ■? It would seem that we must do 

 one of two things ; either get together everything we can without 

 discrimination, until our building is full, and we give out to those 

 who would be contributors that it will hold nothing more, or we 

 must select certain objects and specimens, or certain classes of 

 such, to the exclusion of others. Still it will not do, perhaps, 

 to dismiss the first question in so summary a way. We must 

 bear in mind with what motives and feelings persons are led 

 primarily to enter Museums. And clearly the majority, at least 

 among the uneducated classes, enter from curiosity. It has been 

 stated above how formerly virtuosos formed collections of what- 

 ever they deemed curious in nature or art, ajsparently taking 

 pleasure in the possession of strange or uncommon objects, apart 

 from the consideration of any other of their characteristics. Now 

 what shewed itself generally in the age in which Natural History 

 was only just beginning to be studied as a science, will still shew 

 itself for a time, we must remember, in individuals whose minds 

 have not yet been trained to scientific research. Hence if we 

 wish to attract men to the study of nature,^-still more if we 

 wish to wean them from other pursuits of a frivolous, or it may 

 be of a debasing character, by engaging their attention with 

 objects calculated to raise their ideas above those which have 

 hitherto occupied their thoughts, — to ennoble and elevate their 

 hearts also as well as their minds, we must in the first instance 

 find something to excite their curiosity. 



