MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE 



the structure, the forms, and the varied modifications of 

 plants : their classification and affinities ; their distribution 

 in space and time ; their habits and modes of growth ; 

 their uses to savage and to civilized man. An outline of 

 all that is most interesting and instructive in the science 

 would be made visible to the eye and clear to the under- 

 standing ; and it does not seem too much to expect that, 

 so exhibited, Botany would lose much of its supposed 

 difficulty and repulsiveness, and that many might be 

 thereby induced to devote their leisure to this most useful 

 and attractive study. 



In order to assist those who are really students, a 

 separate room should be provided, containing a Herbarium 

 of British plants, as well as one illustrative of the more 

 important exotic families and genera ; and to this should 

 be attached a collection of the more useful botanical 

 works. 



Zoology. — Owing to the superior numbers and greater 

 variety of animals, their more complicated structure and 

 more divergent habits, the higher interest that attaches 

 to them, and their greater adaptability for exhibition, 

 this department must always be the most extensive and 

 most important in a Natural History Museum. 



The general principles guiding the selection and exhi- 

 bition of animals are the same as have been applied to 

 plants, subject to many modifications in detail. The 

 great primary divisions, or sub-kingdoms (Vertebrata, 

 Mollusca, &c.), as well as the classes in each sub-kingdom 

 (Mammalia, Birds, &c. and Cephalopoda, Gasteropoda, &c.), 

 should be defined, by means of skeletons and anatomical 

 preparations or models, so as to render their fundamental 

 differences of structure clear and intelligible. At the 

 head of each order (or subdivision of the class) a similar 

 exposition should be made of essential differences of 

 structure ; and in every case the function or purpose of 

 these differences should be pointed out by means of clearly- 

 expressed tables and diagrams. 



We now come to the specimens of animals to be 

 exhibited, in order to give an adequate idea of their 

 variety and beauty ; their strange modifications of form 



