Sept. 12, 1889] 



NATURE 



465 



Though there is very much to be said for it, the objection has 

 been raised that it cuts man himself in two. The ilkistrations 

 of man's bodily structure are undoubtedly subjects for the 

 zoologist. The subtile gradations of form, proportion, and 

 colour which distinguish the different races of men, can only be 

 appreciated by one with the education of an anatomist, and 

 whose eye has been trained to estimate the value of such 

 characters in discriminating the variations of animal forms. 

 The subjects for comparison required for this branch of research 

 must therefore be looked for in the zoological collections. 



But the comparatively new science of " anthropology " em- 

 braces not only man's physical structure : it includes his mental 

 develojiment, his manners, customs, traditions, and languages. 

 The illustrations of his works of art, domestic utensils, and 

 weapons of war are essential parts of its study. In fact it is im- 

 possible to say where it ends. It includes all that man is or 

 ever has been, all that he has ever done. No definite line can 

 be drawn between the rudest flint weapon and the most ex- 

 quisitely finished instrument of destruction which has ever been 

 turned out from the manufactory at Elswick, between the rough 

 representation of a mammoth, carved by one of its contemporary 

 men on a portion of its own tusk, and the most admirable pro- 

 duction of a Landseer. An anthropological collection, to be 

 logical, must include all that is in not only the old British Museum 

 but the South Kensington Museum and the National Gallery. 

 The notion of an anthropology which considers savages and pre- 

 historic people as apart from the rest of mankind may, in the 

 limitations of human powers, have certain conveniences, but it 

 is utterly unscientific, and loses sight of the great value of the 

 study in tracing the gradual growth of our complex systems 

 and customs from the primitive ways of our progenitors. 



On the other hand, the division first indicated is as perfectly 

 definite, logical, and scientific as any such division can be. 

 That there are many inconveniences attending wide local dis- 

 junctions of the collections containing subjects so distinct yet so 

 nearly allied as physical and psychical anthropology must be 

 fully admitted ; but these could only have been overcome by 

 embracing in one grand institution the various national collections 

 illustrating the different branches of science and art, placed in 

 such order and juxtaposition that their mutual relations might 

 be apparent, and the resources of each might be brought to bear 

 upon the elucidation of all the others — an ideal institution, such 

 as the world has not yet seen, but into which the old British 

 Museum might at one time have been developed. 



A purely "Natural History Museum" will then embrace a 

 collection of objects illustrating the natural productions of the 

 earth, and in its widest and truest sense should include, as far as 

 they can be illustrated by museum specimens, all the sciences 

 which deal with natural phenomena. It has only been the 

 difficulties, real or imaginary, in illustrating them which have 

 excluded such subjects as astronomy, physics, chemistry, and 

 physiology from occupying departments in our National iS'atural 

 History Museum, while allowing the introduction of their sister 

 sciences, mineralogy, geology, botany, and zoology. 



Though the experimental sciences and those which deal with 

 the laws which govern the universe, rather than with the 

 materials of which it is composed, have not hitherto greatly 

 called forth the collector's instinct, or depended upon museums 

 for their illustration, yet the great advantages of collections of 

 the various instruments by means of which these sciences are 

 pursued, and of examples of the methods by which they are 

 taught, are yearly becoming more manifest. Museums of scientific 

 apparatus now form portions of every well-equipped educational 

 establishment, and under the auspices of the Science and Art 

 Department at South Kensington a national collection illustrating 

 those branches of natural history science which have escaped 

 recognition in the British Museum is assuming a magnitude and 

 importance which brings the question of properly housing and 

 displaying it urgently to the front. 



Anomalies such as these are certain to occur in the present 

 almost infantile though rapidly progressive state of science. It 

 may be taken for granted that no scientific institution of any 

 complexity of organization can be', except at the moment of its 

 birth, abreast of the most modern views of the subject, especially 

 in the dividing lines between, and the proportional representa- 

 tion of, the various branches of knowledge which it includes. 



The necessity for subdivisions in the study of science is con- 

 tinually becoming more apparent as the knowledge of the 

 details of each subject multiplies without corresponding increase 

 in the power of the human mind to grasp and deal with them. 



and the dividing lines not only become sharper, but as knowledge 

 advances they frequently require revision. It might be supposed 

 that such revision would adjust itself to the direction taken by 

 the natural development of the relations of the different branches 

 of science, and the truer conceptions entertained of such relations. 

 But this is not always so. Artificial barriers are continually 

 being raised to keep these dividing lines in the direction in 

 which they have once started. Difficulties of readjustment arise 

 not only from the mechanical obstacles caused by the size and 

 arrangements of the buildings and facilities for the allocation of 

 various kinds of collections, but still more from the numerous 

 personal interests which grow up and wind their meshes around 

 such institutions. Professors and curatorships of this or that 

 division of scietice are founded and endowed, and their holders 

 are usually tenacious either of encroachment upon or of any 

 wide enlargement of the boundaries of the subject they have 

 undertaken to teach or to illustrate ; and in this way, more 

 than any other, passing phases of scientific knowledge have 

 become crystallized or fossilized in institutions where they might 

 least have been expected. I may instance many European 

 Universities and great museums in which zoology and comparative 

 anatomy are still held to be distinct subjects taught by different 

 professors, and where, in consequence of the division of the 

 collections under their charge, the skin of an animal, illustrating 

 its zoology, and its skeleton and teeth, illustrating its anatomy,' 

 must be looked for in different and perhaps remotely placed 

 buildings. 



For the perpetuation of the unfortunate separation of palae- 

 ontology from biology, which is so cleirly a survival of an 

 ancient condition of scientific culture, and for the maintenance 

 in its integrity of the heterogeneous compound of sciences which 

 we now call "geology," the faulty organization of our museums 

 is in a great measure responsible. The more their rearrange- 

 ment can be made to overstep and breik down the abrupt line 

 of demarcation which is still almost universally drawn between 

 beings which live now and those which have lived in past times, 

 so deeply rooted in the popular mind and so hard to eradicate 

 even from that of the scientific student, the better it will be for 

 the progress of sound biological knowledge. 



But it is not of the removal of such great anomalies and 

 inconsistencies which, when they have once grown up, require 

 heroic methods to set them right, but rather of certain minor 

 defects in the organization of almost all existing museums which 

 are well within the capacity of comparatively modest adminis- 

 trative means to remedy, that I have now to speak. 



That great improvements have been lately effected in many 

 respects in some of the museums in this country, on the Con- 

 tinent, and especially in America, no one can deny. The 

 subject, as I have already indicated, is, happily, exciting the 

 attention of those who have the direction of them, and even 

 awakening interest in the mind of the general public. It is in 

 the hope of in some measure helping on or guiding this move- 

 ment that I have ventured on the remarks which follow. 



The first consideration in establishing a museum, large or 

 small, either in a town, institution, society, or school, is that it 

 should have some definite object or purpose to fulfil ; and the 

 next is that means should be forthcoming not only to establish 

 but also to maintain the museum in a suitable manner to fulfil 

 that purpose. Some persons are enthusiastic enough to think 

 that a museum is in itself so gODd an object that they have only 

 to provide a building and cases and a certain number of speci- 

 mens, no matter exactly what, to fill them, and then the thing is 

 done ; whereas the truth is the work is only then begun. What 

 a museum really depends upon for its success and usefulness is 

 not its building, not its cases, not even its specimens, but its 

 curator. He and his staff are the life and : 0.1I of the institution, 

 upon whom its whole value depends ; and yet in many — I may 

 say most — of our museums they are the last to be thought of. 

 The care, the preservation, the naming of the specimens are 

 either left to voluntary effort — excellent often for special col- 

 lections and for a limited time, but never to be depended on as 

 a permanent arrangement — or a grievously under-salaried and 

 consequently uneducated official is expected to keep in order, to 

 clean, dust, arrange, name, and display in a manner which will 

 contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge, collections 

 ranging in extent over almost every branch of human learning, 

 from the contents of an ancient British barrow to the last 

 discovered bird of paradise from New Guinea. 



Valuable specimens not unfrequently find their way into 

 museums thus managed. Their public-spirited owners fondly 



