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MUSEUMS 



tsetze-flies have been, only recently, proved to be the 

 causes, the carriers, of diseases malaria, yellow fever, 

 and sleeping sickness which annually have killed 

 hundreds of thousands of men, colonists as well as 

 natives. I was able to bring together at the Natural 

 History Museum collections of mosquitoes from every 

 part of the world, amounting to thousands of specimens 

 and to some hundreds of kinds. The study of these and 

 of the tsetze-flies by skilled entomologists employed in the 

 museum has been a necessary part of the steps now being 

 taken everywhere to preserve human population from the 

 attacks of certain deadly kinds among them, distinguished 

 from the others which are harmless. 



Thus, then, it seems that the first and most important 

 purpose for which great "museums " exist is that of " the 

 making of new knowledge " the increase of science by 

 furnishing carefully gathered and preserved " specimens " 

 of all kinds, and by working out the history and signifi- 

 cance of those collections. But there is a second and 

 distinct purpose which is often ignorantly put in the first 

 place. It is of less importance and quite unlike the first 

 in the methods necessary for its attainment, and yet is 

 conveniently and satisfactorily carried out in conjunction 

 with the first. This second and distinct purpose is the 

 exhibition of such portions of the collections in a museum 

 as are suitable for exhibition (only a smaller portion are 

 so) in public galleries, so chosen, arranged, lighted and 

 labelled as to afford to the public at large the maximum 

 of enjoyment and edification. This is, as it were, a readily 

 accessible enjoyment given to the public in recognition of 

 the large sums of public money expended on the severer 

 and less easily appreciated enterprise of the museum. The 

 public galleries of a museum, whether of natural history, 

 antiquities or art, should not contain the bulk of the 

 collection, but only special things, carefully selected, and 



