PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. O 



ject, and at an hour's notice have himself surrounded by all the objects 

 he may require for the demonstration of his lesson. 



In the analysis of the plan of classification, the importance of which 

 should never be forgptten, commencing with man, he is considered (1) 

 as a zoological unit or species, (2) as grouped in tribes and races, (3) as 

 an individual, as a representative man; and (4) in his vocations. Sup- 

 pose, in his vocations, we take what are called the exploitative indus- 

 tries. The primary would be quarrying, mining, the ice industry, engi- 

 neering, collection of field and fruit products, lumbering, hunting, fish- 

 ing, and the butchers' industry. Kow, in the secondary branches of 

 vocations more complex would be agriculture, horticulture, forestry, 

 landscape gardening, pecudiculture, domesticated animals, and accli- 

 mation. When we come to what are designated as elaborati ve industries 

 and the arts, the list is very great. In studying the social relations of 

 man enters telegraphy, government, laws, punishments, and with it 

 war, with all the implements, offensive and defensive. With the intel- 

 lectual and moral conditions of man come his superstitions, his crimes, 

 errors, religious organizations and systems, his benevolent enterprises, 

 charities, reformatory institutions, his amusements and sports, pictorial 

 and plastic art, music, the drama, folk-lore, proverbs, traditions, liter- 

 ature, and science. 



Endeavoring to show the enormity of this work only by its subdivis- 

 ions, as illustrative of man's amusements, there are his toys and play- 

 things. A i^hilosophical analysis takes place. There are toys which 

 attract one's senses — that of the eye, others the ear. A toy may com- 

 bine both. Then there are mimetic toys, as dolls, miniatures of imple- 

 ments or useful objects. Kow, fancy a series of toys extending back a 

 century, or a row of cases filled with the dolls of both hemispheres. 

 Smile as one may, still, to those who will study siich things, wonderful 

 are the lessons to be learned. Questions of kindred habit are often to 

 be found in these minor topics, which tell the story of a race. 



What a wonderful collection that would be illustrative of the drama, 

 and how amazing would be the splendor of it. Think of the blaze of cos- 

 tumes and the leer of innumerable masks, for it would have to start, as 

 a foundation, with the copies of those masks the Greeks used when 

 G^dipus Tyrannus strode the stage. It has been said that nothing is 

 to escape this vast collecting vortex. Here in situ, jusit as one enters 

 the museum, is a case filled with Japanese masks, such as are used by 

 Japanese actors for a religious drama of the fourteenth century. Away 

 up stairs in one of the side storage-rooms littering the floor are a number 

 of wooden masks yet unclassed. These come from the northwest coast 

 of America. The veriest smatterer in archseological matters can at once 

 see how striking is the resemblance between the contour and the grimace 

 of the Japanese masks and those of the American Indian. The par- 

 allelism is complete. Are we to determine, then, at once from these 

 indications that these two races are of one common origin? Was 



