MUSEUMS 289 



Where then is the miscalculation ? How is it that 

 the method which seemed so obvious fails to answer 

 expectation ? It is, I think, because an important factor 

 has not received due attention. We have considered 

 what Zoology and Botany and Geology are, and how they 

 can be logically cultivated, but we have not properly 

 considered what the schoolboy is, and what instruction 

 he will accept or refuse. The untrained boy has many 

 individual peculiarities, but two or three things are true 

 of untrained boys in general. They hate copious details, 

 they hate Latin and Greek names, and they are not warmly 

 interested in dead animals and plants protected from all 

 interference by plate-glass. Not only schoolboys but 

 people of all ages soon tire of being shown a multiplicity 

 of objects of the same kind, all protected by glass. 



Claparede, an eminent and productive zoologist, has 

 declared that " les musees pesent lourdement sur la 

 science." I should not be easily persuaded that this is 

 generally true, and that our Natural History Museum 

 at South Kensington, the Museum of Natural History at 

 Brussels, the Hope collection at Oxford and the Manchester 

 Museum are incumbrances, of which science would be 

 well rid. Such museums as these secure the progress 

 which zoological science has already made, and train 

 experts who will carry that progress yet further. Instead 

 of admitting that great and well- arranged museums weigh 

 heavily on science, I believe that they should be yet more 

 numerous, more extensive and more completely systematic 

 than in our day. But I am ready to admit that the nearer 

 they approach to scientific completeness, the less fitted 

 will they become for popular instruction. 



It may be thought practicable to divide the objects in 

 a great public museum into two sets, one arranged to suit 

 the convenience of experts, and the other adapted for 

 popular instruction. I have little doubt that such a 

 separation of the collections in any great public museum 

 is prohibited by the circumstance that the visitors are 



T 



