54 THE FORMATION OF LOCAL MUSEUMS. 



what there is of interest in the Natural History of the neigh- 

 bourhood, and we have heard a series of papers read more or 

 less calculated to help us in our investigations. And this evening 

 I want to say a few words about a general collection of objects 

 of interest into our museum, to which each of us may do 

 something, and some may do much. TTiat is, observe, we 

 have learnt what to work for and how to work for it, and we 

 are going to consider what to do wath it when formed ; but, of 

 course it will have struck all the clear-headed of my listeners, 

 that is to say, all who are now listening to me, that there is a 

 great gap between these two — the Rambles and the Museums. 

 They are the extremities and the middle is wanting. How 

 to get it and what to do with it are capital things to know ; 

 but the actual getting of it, let it be what it may, is the thing 

 to do. Rambles are good, and Museums are good, but that 

 which comes between is better ; the patient individual work 

 by which the knowledge acquired at the rambles, is soon for- 

 gotten in the wonders discovered by personal investigation, 

 and the members of our Society, from being merely interested 

 in Natural History, by degrees educate themselves into 

 naturalists. Unless we take up each for himself or herself 

 some one or more lines of search, and follow it out, either 

 singly or in groups of not more than two or three, we shall 

 never become naturalists in any sense of the word ; our 

 rambles will be nothing but pleasant walks of monthly occur- 

 rence during the summer, and our museums will never be 

 made, and if made, never filled. 



Look at all these books round us on the various subjects 

 connected with Natural History. They are not the result of 

 rambles, nor do they represent the incomes of their writers. 

 In the main they are the work of men's leisure time, and it is 

 by employment of leisure time that you may become natu- 

 ralists too. However I do not want to preach a sermon, but 

 to give a hint. I want to see a museum in Folkestone worthy 

 of the name, and I want you to "make it and fill it. 



Such a Museum ought to consist of three portions, an 

 educational and a local museum and a library. A general 

 museum, a collection of odds and ends, serving no ends, and 

 merely odd by reason of where they are, is not a high type of 

 exhibition, and though, in the first fury for giving, many 

 offers would probably be made of things which it would be 



