40 MtrSETTMS. 



that no school or college, however humble, should be without 

 its own collections of natural history, and that in proportion as 

 the school is well provided these should be well chosen and well 

 cared for. 



Lastly, I desire once again most emphatically to slate my 

 conviction that the instruction and interest offered by the 

 collections in museums is by no means of a nature specially 

 fitted for children's minds. I doubt very much whether 

 children should be taken to any museum, except as a treat, and 

 then only for a very short visit. Museums, whether metro- 

 politan and national or local, are properly addressed to grown- 

 up, intelligent people, and, whilst such people do not choose to 

 give their time and trouble to visiting the museums and 

 enjoying what they have to give, more harm than good will be 

 done by dragging unwilling children through museum 

 galleries under the guidance of wearisome " teachers." Nine- 

 tenths, or even ninety-nine hundredths of the persons who sit 

 on municipal and other committees concerned in the manage- 

 ment of public museums know nothing about the contents of 

 the museums, and never visit them themselves for pleasure or 

 instruction. In sheer ignorance and misconception they insist 

 on the educational value of these museixms for " children." 



The child who is taken by an \m sympathetic teacher to a 

 museum, and there severely taught, probably grows up with as 

 great a distaste for museums as the older generation exhibit. 

 There is a great deal to be said in favour of letting a museum 

 teach impersonally, quietly, unforcibly, and unhurriedly; its 

 impressiveness, aided by a certain mystery and charm in its 

 unspoken appeal, its dignified silence, and its seemingly 

 inexhaustible stores of strange and beautiful things. 



I am, my dear Sir, 

 Yours faithfully, 



(Signed) E. RAY LANKESTER, 



Director. 

 Sir George Kekewich, K.C.B., 



President, The School Nature 

 Study Union. 



