4 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1905. 



with which it is concerned, the correspondence which this involves 

 now constituting one of its heaviest tasks. 



The late Dr. G. Brown Goode divided the history of the Museum 

 into three epochs, corresponding in a general way with successive 

 additions to its purposes, which he described as follows: 



First, the period from the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution to hs. r >7, during 

 which time specimens were collected solely to serve as materials for research. No special 

 effort was made to exhibit them to the public or to utilize them, except as a foundation 

 for scientific description and theory. 



Second, the period from 1857, when the Institution assumed the custody of the " National 

 Cabinet of Curiosities," to 1876. During this period the Museum became a place of deposit 

 for scientific collections, which had already been studied, these collections, so far as con- 

 venient, being exhibited to the public and, so far as practicable, made to serve an educa- 

 tional purpose. 



Third, the present period (beginning in the year 1876), in which the Museum has under- 

 taken more fully the additional task of gathering collections and exhibiting them on account 

 of their value from an educational standpoint. 



During the first period the main object of the Museum was scientific research; in the 

 second the establishment became a museum of record as well as of research, while in the 

 third period has been added the idea of public education. The three ideas record, 

 research, and education — cooperative and mutually helpful as they are, are essential to 

 the development of every great museum. The National Museum endeavors to promote 

 them all. 



It is a museum of record in which are preserved the material foundations of an enormous 

 amount of scientific knowledge —the types of numerous past investigations. This is 

 especially the case with those materials that have served as a foundation for the reports 

 upon the resources of the United States. 



It is a museum of research, which aims to make its contents serve in the highest degree 

 as a stimulus to inquiry and a foundation for scientific investigation. Research is neces- 

 sary in order to identify and group the objects in the most philosophical and instructive 

 relations, and its officers are therefore selected for their ability as investigators as well as 

 for their trustworthiness as custodians. 



It is an educational museum, through its policy of illustrating by specimens every kind 

 of natural object and every manifestation of human thought and activity, of displaying 

 descriptive labels adapted to the popular mind, and of distributing its publications and 

 its named series of duplicates. 



AS A MUSEUM OF RECORD. 



The record collections of the Museum have had an unprecedented 

 growth, due mainly to the rapid exploration and development of a 

 rich and extensive country, under the liberal and progressive policy 

 of the Government, though much material lias been derived from 

 other sources. The total number of specimens of all classes now 

 in the Museum is above (i, 000, 000, but this includes a very large 

 quantity of material which has not yet been studied. As fast as 

 the hitter is worked up, it is placed with the record series. 



The principal sources of the record as well as of the unclassified 

 collections have been as follows: 



The earlier explorations carried on by or in conjunction with the 

 Smithsonian Institution. 



