REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 15 
promote the scientific and educational interests of the country at large. 
This being granted, it is essential not only that the collections should 
grow, and grow rapidly, in order to keep pace with the material and 
intellectual development of the country, but also that a competent staft 
of curators should be constantly at work, developing by scientific study 
and publishing under the auspices of the Government the facts which 
are essential to the correct understanding of the material under their 
charge, preserving the collections from destruction, and arranging and 
classifying them in such a manner that they shall be immediately ac- 
cessible to the students of science from all parts of this country and 
from abroad, who are constantly visiting Washington for the purpose 
of consulting the collections of the Government in connection with their 
own scientific studies. 
On this account it is a critical time in the history of the Museum. 
Such is the competition for material that the National Museum of the 
United States is unable to hold its own not only with foreign govern- 
ments and with local museums in other American cities, but is even at 
a disadvantage when its collections are compared with those of many 
private collectors. For instance, there are in this country several pri- 
vate collections of minerals, archeological objects, as well as of speci- 
mens reijating to the various departments of zodlogy, the promoters of 
which can seemingly afford to pay more for any choice objects needed 
to complete their collections than can the Government of the United 
States. It is somewhat mortifying to see collections of American ob- 
jects, which a few years hence will undoubtedly be recognized by every- 
one as essential to be preserved in the National Museum of this country, 
taken away to foreign countries because their value is more highiy 
appreciated there than at home. Whatever may be considered the 
proper functions of the National Museum of the United States in regard 
to other matters, it will always be expected that in the national capi- 
tal the collections illustrating ethnology and the natural resources of 
this continent will be fully as imposing as in other similar establish- 
ments, and that the national collections should compare favorably with 
those in other American cities, and will in respect to American material 
surpass those in any foreign capital. 
It is not my wish to depreciate the importance of what has already 
been done by the Government for the advancement of scientific research, 
for in most of the fields in which really serious work has been accom- 
plished, the National Museum is at least equal, and often superior to, any 
other in the United States, but the effort to maintain the collections on 
this footing will be much more difficult hereafter than in the past. 1t 
would be unfortunate if students of American natural history and ethnol- 
ogy, who have hitherto been obliged to come to Washington in connec- 
tion with their studies, should hereafter find it more advantageous to 
consult private collections in other parts of this country. 
Growth of the collections—The growth of the national collections 
