10 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1914. 
funds permitted, and, as is well known, the maintenance of the 
Museum and the library was long ago assumed by Congress, the Insti- 
tution taking upon itself only so much of the necessary responsibility 
for the administration of these and subsequent additions to its activi- 
ties as would weld them into a compact whole, which together form 
a unique and notable agency for the increase and diffusion of knowl- 
edge, for the direction of research, for cooperation with depart- 
ments of the Government and with universities and scientific socie- 
ties in America, and likewise afford a definite correspondent 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 64 years have made most fruit- 
ful—the natural history, geology, ethnology, and archeology of the 
United States, supplemented by many collections from other coun- 
tries. The opportunities for acquisition in these directions have 
been mainly brought about through the activities of the scientific and 
economic surveys of the Government, many of which are the direct 
outgrowths of earlier explorations, stimulated or directed by the 
Smithsonian Institution. The Centennial Exhibition of 1876 af- 
forded 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 eight 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 sys- 
tematic arrangement of its vast and varied collections as well as a 
comprehensive public installation, and under these favorable con- 
ditions it may be considered to have entered upon an era of re- 
newed 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 speci- 
mens assembled and their money value, but upon the use to which 
