NATURE 



217 



THURSDAY, JULY 7, xl 



MUSEUMS. 

 \ Essays on Museums and other Subjects connected with 

 I Natural History. By Sir William Henry Flower, 

 I K.C.B., &c. Pp. XV + 394 (London : Macmillan and 

 » Co., Ltd., 1898.) 



CIR WILLIAM FLOWER'S name is so intimately 

 *^ associated with the subject of museum management 

 and organisation, that all naturalists who have been 

 accustomed to look to him as their guide in this direction 

 will be glad to have his writings collected into one volume 

 for reference. The fact that the twenty essays and the 

 four biographical notices have already been published 

 elsewhere in no way detracts from their value, since the 

 utterances of acknowledged leaders always possess his- 

 torical interest, apart from the influence which they may 

 have exerted upon contemporary thought. 



Although the present volume deals with museums in 

 the first place, there are altogether four sets of essays 

 —the first treating of museums, the second of general 

 biology, the third of anthropology, and the fourth con- 

 sisting of biographical sketches of Rolleston, Owen, 

 Huxley and Darwin. This arrangement, although up- 

 setting the chronological order in which the various 

 essays appeared, is very convenient for the reader and 

 to some extent — but not wholly — compensates for the 

 absence of an index, an omission to which we feel bound 

 to call attention in these days of overwhelming scientific 

 literature, when writers on scientific subjects are expected 

 as a solemn duty to the reading public to give every facility 

 for reference to the contents of their volumes. We are 

 afraid, moreover, that the author himself is likely to suffer 

 from this omission ; for there is so much in his writings 

 that one desires to rememberand to quote, that unless notes 

 are made as the pages are perused, the busy worker in 

 science is likely to be put to endless trouble in endeavour- 

 ing to find a passage which may have struck him at first 

 leading as worthy of selection for future use. It is true 

 that the various essays have their contents set forth at 

 the commencement of the volume, but it is generally 

 admitted that such tables of contents are very poor sub- 

 stitutes for a good index. In calling attention to this 

 defect we are in reality paying the author the compliment 

 of recording the opinion, which will be generally endorsed, 

 that his writings have more than an ephemeral interest. 

 Of the leading ideas which run through Sir William 

 lower's essays on museums, the importance of such 

 .atablishments as educational institutions is more than 

 once dwelt upon and cannot be too strongly emphasised. 

 At the present time, especially when County Council 

 technical Instruction Committees are wavering in their 

 policy with respect to the endowment of museums, it is of 

 nterest to read the following passage given in an address 

 t the Museums Association in 1893 : — 



" One cannot help considering how much might have 

 been done if only a moderate portion of that large sum 

 of money obtained a few years ago by the tax on brewers, 

 and handed over to the County Councils to spend in pro- 

 moting technical education, had been used for erecting 

 museums, which might have taken a permanent place in 

 the education of the country. Every subject taught, in 



NO. 1497, VOL. 58] 



order to make the teaching real and practical, should 

 have its collection, and these various collections might 

 all have been associated in the county museum under the 

 same general management. The staff of teachers would 

 assist in the curatorial work, and thus a well-equipped 

 central college for technical education might have been 

 formed in every county, sending out ramifications into 

 the various districts in which the need of special instruc- 

 tion was most felt, and being also the parent of smaller 

 branch museums of the same kind wherever they seem 

 required " (pp. 34-35)- 



Some few of the counties have assisted in maintaining 

 their local museums, but these are exceptions. In 

 districts which are rural and agricultural, and where 

 such institutions would be particularly valuable, little or 

 nothing has been done. Those counties which have 

 adopted the frittering-down policy of decentralisation 

 have left themselves without adequate funds for the 

 purpose. It may be doubted whether the sporadic 

 instruction in those hardy perennial subjects of cookery, 

 dressmaking and ambulance, which come sufficiently near 

 the definition of technical instruction to entitle local 

 committees to claim their share of the beer money, is 

 ever likely to be of such lasting value to the welfare of 

 the country as the foundation of educational museums. 

 At any rate the present writer has no doubt on this point, 

 whatever the attitude of County Councillors may be, 

 and it is tolerably certain that in the present state of 

 public opinion no auditor would be likely to challenge 

 the expenditure of the technical instruction grant for such 

 a purpose. 



Another idea which Sir William Flower constantly 

 urges is the importance of competent curatorship. Again 

 and again has he insisted, during many years, upon the 

 necessity for high scientific attainments on the part of 

 those entrusted with the care of museums. In 1893, for 

 example, in the same address as that from which we 

 have already quoted, he told the museum curators then 

 assembled that they were not, as a class, properly ap- 

 preciated by the public. As to the qualifications he 

 said : — 



" Now, a curator of a museum, if he is fit for his duties, 

 must be a man of very considerable education as well as 

 natural ability. If he is not himself an expert in all the 

 branches of human knowledge his museum illustrates, 

 he must be able to understand and appreciate them 

 sufficiently to know where and how he can supplement 

 his own deficiencies, so as to be able to keep every de- 

 partment up to the proper level. His education, in fact, 

 must be not dissimilar to that required for most of the 

 earned professions" (p. 35). 



Again, in the third essay of the present volume, based 

 on statements made in 1891 and 1895 on the subject of 

 local museums, he says : — 



" You might as well build a church and expect it to 

 perform the duties required of it without a mmister, or 

 a school without a schoolmaster, or a garden without 

 a gardener, as to build a museum and not provide a 

 competent staff to take care of it. 



" It is not the objects placed in a museum that con- 

 stitute its value so much as the method in which they 

 are displayed, and the use made of them for the purpose 

 of instruction " (p. 55).^ 



1 In this essay Sir VVm. Flower, speaking of the desirability of preserving, 

 as an interesting survival, the parish stocks where they are still in exist- 

 ence, says that he knows of only one— in the village of Dinton, near Ayles- 

 bury. The writer knows of others at Brading (Isle of Wight), and Abinger, 

 near Dorking. 



