36 



SATTTRDAY I.ECTUKES. 



nate with Oxford students in the XlXth century. " Woman 

 was the first potter and embroiderer. She is everywhere 

 the primitive decorative artist, and it is the exception that 

 man occupies himself with ornamental art, even in civilized 

 countries. Woman covers with ornament everything her 

 hand touches, and the lady in her boudoir industriously 

 embroiders on some article of mere luxury, the same series 

 of frets and scroll borders which, on the Amazonas, the sav- 

 age, unclothed squaw as diligently, and with as firm a hand, 

 traces with a spine on the damp surface of the clay she is 

 fashioning." It is as if they sang the same simple song, like 

 a silver thread binding all lovers of the beautiful into a 

 common sisterhood. Could we find the missing links, the 

 arts of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome would not stand 

 out like green islands of the sea, but would form the neces- 

 ar}^ parts of one homogeneous structure. 



The idea has seized the fruitful mind of Professor Goode, 

 Assistant Director of this grand Museum, and you will read 

 in Professor Baird's Circular No. 2, as follows : 



In the new building will be concentrated all the industrial collections, and all 

 the ethnological specimens, except the reserve series of pre-historic stone imple- 

 ments. In the old building will be kept those collections which are most im- 

 portant as material for purely scientific investigation, such as the main collection 

 of birds, the fishes and reptiles in alcohol, the marine invertebrates, etc. The 

 new building will, however, contain the collections in economic natural history. 



The collections in the new building are intended to form an Anthropological 

 Museutn, organized upon the broadest and most liberal interpretation of the term 

 " anthropology," and illustrating the characteristics of civilized as well as savage 

 races of mankind and their attainments in civilization and culture. The central 

 idea will be man, and the manner in which he adapts the products of the earth 

 to his needs. All useful and noxious animals, plants, and minerals will be shown, 

 industries by means of which they are utilized — by both method and finished 

 product — and finally, the various objects which men use for any purpose, what- 

 ever. A place is provided for every object loJiich has a name* 



"At this point several series of objects were exhibited to the audience to illus- 

 trate the two \Aea.<i, progress and adaptation. Among them was the growth of 

 the ship from the dugout through the skin boat (variety : birch-bark canoe) to the 

 steamer Fish Hawk ; the evolution of the knife, the hammer, the bottle, the 

 saddle, food, and ceramics. 



