10 EEPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1912. 



the funds permitted, and, as is well known, the maintenance of the 

 Museun) and the library was long ago assumed by Congress, the 

 Institution taking upon itself only so much of the necessary re- 

 sponsibility for the administration of these and subsequent addi- 

 tions to its activities as would w^eld them into a compact whole, 

 "which together form a unique and notable agency for the increase and 

 diffusion of knowledge, for the direction of research, for coopera- 

 tion with departments of the Government and with universities 

 and scientific societies in Ajnerica, and likewise afford a definite cor- 

 respondent to all scientific institutions and men abroad who seek 

 interchange of views or knowledge with men of science in the United 

 States. 



Since that early day the only material change in the scope of the 

 Government Museum has been the addition of a department of 

 American history, intended to illustrate by an appropriate assem- 

 blage of objects the lives of distinguished personages, important 

 events, and the domestic life of the country from the colonial period 

 to the present time. 



The development of the Museum has been greatest in those sub- 

 jects which the conditions of the past 60 years have made most 

 fruitful — the natural history, geology, ethnology^ and archeology 

 of the United States, supplemented by many collections from other 

 countries. The opportunities for acquisition in these directions 

 have been mainly brought about through the activities of the scien- 

 tific and economic surveys of the Government, many of which are the 

 direct outgrowths of earlier explorations, stimvdated or directed by 

 the Smithsonian Institution. The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 

 afforded the first opportunity for establishing a department of the 

 industrial arts on a creditable basis, and of this the fullest advantage 

 was taken, though only a part of the collections then obtained could 

 be accommodated in the space available. The department or gallery 

 of the fine arts had made little progress, though not from lack of 

 desire or appreciation, until within the past six years, during which 

 its interests have been markedly advanced. 



With the completion of the new large granite structure on the 

 Mall, the Museum has come virtually into possession of a group of 

 three buildings, in which there is opportunity for a proper systematic 

 arrangement of its vast and varied collections as well as a compre- 

 hensive public installation, and under these favorable conditions it 

 may be considered to have entered upon an era of renewed prosperity 

 and usefulness. 



While it is the primary duty of a museum to preserve the objects 

 confided to its care, as it is that of a library to preserve its books and 

 manuscripts, yet the importance of public collections rests not upon 

 the mere basis of custodianship, nor upon the number of specimens 



