OPENING ADDRESS.—MACGREGOR. By 45) 
report on European Museums, and having subsequently, in pur- 
suance of the report of that Commission, established in addition 
to the General Museum which it already possessed, one of a tech- 
nological character, intended to develop into a technological 
school. 
I have been able to obtain no definite statistics as to the Mu- 
seums of the continent of Europe; but every traveller is aware 
that it is hard to find a town of any importance which does not 
boast of collections of more or less value, while the large towns, 
and the universities possess collections often of enormous extent 
and involving great expenditure. In some countries, more 
especially in France, district Museums, containing collections 
illustrating the natural history and the industrial state of com- 
paratively small districts, exist in considerable numbers, and 
are found to be of great utility from an industrial point of 
view. 
These Museums, which are thus found in such large numbers 
in civilised countries, are of course of very different degrees of 
efficiency and of quite different types. Some do not rise above 
the popular conception of a museum as being a collection of 
curiosities, affording amusement rather than instruction ; and it is 
museums of this kind which bring discredit on the whole class. 
They are useless and should be cut down as cumberers of the 
ground. The majority, however, answer to a greater or less extent 
to the true conception of a museum, as consisting of collections 
illustrating in a systematic manner the present state of human 
knowledge in one or more departments, and the various stages, 
but more especially the present stage, of the activity of one or 
more sections of the human race. It will be obvious that to 
illustrate adequately the present state of knowledge in all depart- 
ments, and present and past stages, of the activity of the whole 
human race, would require a far greater expenditure than even 
the wealthiest nations have so far seen their way to make for 
this purpose. Most museums, therefore, are forced to restrict 
themselves to special objects, and in consequence their varieties 
are very numerous. We find some devoted to single depart- 
ments of knowledge, as geological or zoological museums ; some 
