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subject, by having numerous specimens conveniently arranged for 
the scientific naturalist, which should be kept in separate rooms, 
and supplemented by books of reference on the particular subjects 
which the specimens illustrate. The second object should be the 
instruction and amusement of the numerous class, who, without 
having leisure or ability to make a profound study of natural 
history, yet take an interest in it, and wish to possess some know- 
ledge of the world around them, and the principal actions of nature 
These two ends it was difficult to combine, but it is essential 
that each specimen should be plainly exhibited and properly 
labelled ; indeed, a well arranged educational museum has been 
defined as ‘‘a collection of instructive labels, illustrated by well- 
selected specimens.’’ Hach fragment should be duly described, and 
its label must set forth, not only its scientific place and value, but 
also its relation to the specimens which precede and follow it. 
It has been humourously said that ‘just as in America a pig is 
put in at one end of a machine, and emerges shortly after in the 
form of ready packed hams and bacon,” so a student may enter, 
say the mineralogical museum, as ignorant of the properties of 
stone as are the specimens which meet his gaze, and may leave it 
with a full knowledge of all that is knowable about mineralogy. 
Professor Flower does not include lectures in the arrangement of 
his model institute, but there is no reason why oral explanations 
should be excluded. As the guiding rule should be to extract from 
any such institution the greatest possible utility, and as the intelli- 
gence is generally more easily reached by the ear than by the eye, 
it would seem that a simultaneous appeal to both faculties is the 
ideal method. 
These are the lines upon which our Folkestone Natural History 
Society has endeavoured to work, and [ trust that the lectures with 
which we have tried to supplement the mute teaching of the 
specimens in our museum have been a source of pleasure and 
profit to many. 
Mineralogy is, of course, a science to which the labelled specimen 
readily lends itself as a teacher, but with many other sciences, 
such as astronomy or physics, this is not the case. Chemistry, 
again, must be learned almost wholly by oral teaching, illustrated 
by experiment. Natural history, also, though it affords more 
readily than any other science specimens for ocular demonstration, 
can be brought home to the mind of the uninitiated far better by a 
few words of explanation than by a superficial glance at the natural 
history cases in our museums. Take, for instance, the study of 
that marvellous law called ‘‘ Mimicry in Nature,” one of the many 
interesting facts brought to light by Charles Darwin in connection 
with his theory of the ‘‘ Survival of the Fittest.’’ No specimen 
