628 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1917. 



Government department, there were many quite rational and well- 

 meaning people who said, " Well, what's all the fuss about ? Every- 

 thing must give way to getting on with the war." So it was neces- 

 sary for us museum folk to explain to these genuine, if ignorant, 

 patriots that we, too, were getting on with the war quite as much as 

 the departments for w^hom we were to be ousted. 



Now that the immediate danger is over, without relaxing our efforts 

 in the national cause, we can return to an attitude that is more digni- 

 fied because it is in harmony with the whole truth and not merelj^ 

 with that small part of it which is best adapted to catch the public 

 eye. We can insist once more that all knowledge has its value, that 

 " the knowledge and the power of man coincide," and that you must 

 have science before you can apply it. This leads us to the next step 

 in our analysis, namely, to consider the relation of museums to pure 

 scientific research. 



There are many distinguished biologists who appear to be unaware 

 of the research that is carried on in such an establishment as the 

 Natural History Museum, and who seem to think that the work of 

 museum naturalists can have little to do with their own studies in 

 morphology, genetics, experimental embryology, and all those lines 

 along which advance has of late been so rapid and brilliant. This is 

 a great mistake, and one from which they might have been saved 

 had they considered more closely the history of the biological sciences, 

 and had they realized the interdependence of all branches of science. 

 Zoology and botany made but slow progress until there arose the 

 great classifier, Linnaeus. Linnaeus was no " mere systematist," but 

 the need of his time was the orderly arangement of the multitudinous 

 collections that were flooding in from all parts of the world and the 

 coordination of the scattered facts that had accumulated concerning 

 the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. Until this had been 

 done, until species had been discriminated and named, there could be 

 no science of comparative anatomy, no discussion as to the origin of 

 species, no stratigraphical geology, no philosophy of geographical 

 distribution, no firmly based theory of evolution, and no science of 

 breeding. By classifjdng and arranging the royal and other collec- 

 tions at Stockholm, the university collections at Upsala and else- 

 where, Linnaeus and his followers were the first to raise museums 

 above the curiosity-shop stage and to make them an engine of scien- 

 tific advance. Here it particularly interests us to remember that it 

 was Solander, the favorite pupil of Linnaeus, who introduced his 

 methods into all the natural history work of the British Museum. 

 For many a decade the need for this systematic classification con- 

 tinued urgent ; exploration of the lands and waters of the world and 

 of the rocks beneath its surface piled up in our museums collections 

 that became riches only in proportion as they were worked out, de- 



