324 MUSEUMS 



greater amount of detailed and elaborate information than 

 does the great public museum, and requires from the 

 student who uses it a special previous study of the subject, 

 and an exceptional amount of attention and pains in 

 examining the objects exhibited. 



Too many of the public museums of Europe aim at the 

 " instruction " of the special student rather than at the 

 "edification" of the general public, whilst most aim at 

 nothing at all except showing, without explanation or 

 comment, a vast mass of specimens or pictures, at the 

 sight of which the patient but bored public gapes with 

 wonder. The public galleries of the Natural History 

 Museum in London have been arranged more distinctly 

 with a view to the edification of the public than those of 

 ' any other museum which I know. But they still contain 

 too large a number of specimens, and still require an im- 

 mense amount of work in weeding, selection and labelling, 

 and in deliberately making the specimens exhibited tell a 

 tale which is worth remembering, and can be remembered. 

 Except in the case of the larger specimens, and especially 

 those of fossilised skeletons and shells of extinct animals, 

 it must be remembered that the bulk of the specimens 

 (and, indeed, all the valuable skins of animals and birds, 

 and the vast series of insects and such small things) in 

 that, as in every other large museum, are contained in 

 cabinets protected from the destructive action of light, 

 and arranged for the most part in rooms to which access 

 is obtained only by serious workers after special appli- 

 cation. The fishes and other animals preserved in alcohol 

 are kept in a special fire-proof " spirit-building." 



A provincial public museum, even if it does not aim at 

 the guardianship of important local " records " of natural 

 history and antiquity, should aim at the edification of the 

 public the grown-up public and not at the instruction 

 of school children. The notion that museums are meant 



