REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1918. 11 



Nor has the elementary or even the higher education been by any 

 means the sole gainer from the work of the Museum. To advance 

 knowledge, to gradually extend the boundaries of learning, has been 

 one of the great tasks to which the Museum, in consonance with the 

 spirit of the institution, has set itself from the first. Its staff, 

 though chiefly engaged in the duties incident to the care, classifi- 

 cation, and labeling of collections in order that they may be accessible 

 lo the public and to students, has yet in these operations made im- 

 portant discoveries in every department of the Museum's activities, 

 which have in turn been communicated to other scholars through 

 its numerous publications. But the collections have not been held 

 for the study of the staff nor for the scientific advancement of those 

 belonging to the establishment. Most freely have they been put 

 at the disposal of investigators connected with other institutions, 

 without whose help the record of scientific progress based upon the 

 material in the Museum would have been greatly curtailed. When 

 it is possible to so arrange, the investigator comes to WasTiington ; 

 otherwise such collections as he needs are sent to him, whether he 

 resides in this country or abroad. In this manner practically every 

 prominent specialist throughout the world interested in the subjects 

 here well represented has had some use of the collections and thereby 

 the National Museum has come to be recognized as a conspicuous 

 factor in the advancement of knowledge wherever civilization has a 

 foothold. 



