58 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



Sir William H. Flower, says of museums and their pur- 

 poses, "It is not the objects i)laeed in a museum that con- 

 stitute its value, so much as the metliod in which they are 

 displayed and the use made of them for the jjurpose of 

 instruction." This definition of the veteran museum ad- 

 ministrator is perhaps the keynote to the modern expan- 

 sion of the museum idea. 



Museums are of man}'^ kinds; some are devoted to exhibi- 

 tions for the general public and are supported by munici- 

 palities ; others belong to learned societies, universities, and 

 even private individuals. At the present time more than 

 600 such institutions, large and small, are known in the 

 United States, and many exist in Europe and other i^arts 

 of the world. 



But it is the university museum to which I wish to 

 direct your attention at this time. It has been urged by 

 some educators that the methods in use in the larger 

 museums of the great cities are not alppicable to a univer- 

 sity museum ; and one wonders why such an opinion should 

 be held because the new museumology is highly educational 

 and of all places it should best fit into the educational 

 plans of a seat of learning, such as a university. 



The great public museums, during the past twenty 

 years have passed through a period of active evolution and 

 they have now attained a measure of organization which 

 makes them efficient factors in the educational systems of 

 the larger cities. Universit}^ and college museums are now 

 passing through the same period of evolution. A few uni- 

 versity museums have forged ahead, but the majority have 

 scarcely passed the old stage of the cabinet of natural his- 

 tory so much in vogue two generations ago. 



What, then, should be the character of the natural his- 

 tory museum of a large university and how may the collec- 

 tions and exhibits be made of general educational and in- 

 structural value? The exhibits should be so arranged as 

 to bring out clearly the phenomena of life observed in na- 

 ture. These may be a direct help to the instructional staff 

 by providing illustrative material amplifying the informa- 

 tion given in the texts and lectures ; a synoptic collection, 

 for example, may be so arranged as to give the student a 

 birdseye view of the whole animal kingdom such as would 



