CHAPTER XIII 



ESSAYS ON MUSEUMS 



IN 1889 Flower was elected President of the 

 Zoological Society for the eleventh successive year, 

 a fact which he notes with satisfaction in his diary. 

 His chief work outside the Museum in this year 

 was his Presidential address at the meeting of the 

 British Association at Newcastle on September 4. 

 He took for his subject " Museum Organisation," 

 following, as he reminded the audience, the advice 

 of Mr. Spottiswoode, one of his predecessors in 

 the Presidential chair, that the holder of the office 

 " would generally do better by giving utterance to 

 what has already become part of his own thought 

 than by gathering matter outside of its habitual 

 range for a special occasion." 



Flower said that museums from one or other 

 point of view had "occupied his time and attention 

 almost from the earliest period of his recollection," 

 and proceeded to convince his hearers of this fact 

 by a retrospect of Natural History Museums in the 

 past, a theory of what they should be at present, 



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