448 



NATURE 



[September 4, 1890 



indefatigable strivings and powerful advocacy in that direction. 

 Comprehensive as were the views adopted by Owen regarding 

 the scope and possible extension of that Museum, it may, how- 

 ever, be doubted whether they ever embraced so extensive a 

 field as was presented for our contemplation by his successor 

 last year, when he told us that a natural history museum should, 

 in its widest and truest sense, represent, so far as they can be 

 illustrated by museum-specimens, all the sciences which deal with 

 natural phenomena, and that the difficulties of fitly illustrating 

 them have probably alone excluded such subjects as astronomy, 

 physics, chemistry, and physiology, from occupying departments 

 in our national Museum of Natural History, 



The application, in its broadest signification, of the title. 

 Natural History Museum, may doubtless be considered to 

 include, not only illustrations and examples of the marvellous 

 works of the Creator and of the results of man's labours in 

 tracing their intimate history and their relations to each other, 

 but also illustrations of the means employed, and of the results 

 attained, by man in his strivings to fathom and unravel the laws 

 by which the domains of Nature are governed. But the reason 

 why representative collections, illustrative of the physical sciences, 

 do not form part of our national Natural History Museum, has, 

 I venture to think, scarcely been correctly ascribable to any 

 difficulty of organizing fit illustrations of methods of investiga- 

 tion, of the attendant appliances, and of the results obtained by 

 experimental research ; it appears, rather, to exist in the fact that 

 physical science has hitherto had no share in such a combination 

 of circumstances as has been favourable to the good fortunes and 

 advancement of the natural sciences, and as is analogous to those 

 which, from time to time, give rise to the provision of increased 

 accommodation for our national art treasures. Our present 

 national Science Collection, which has, indeed, had a struggle 

 for existence, does not owe the development it has hitherto 

 experienced to any such moral pressure as has been several times 

 exercised in the case of our art collections, by the munificence 

 of individuals, with the result of securing substantial aid from 

 national resources ; its gradual increase in importance has been 

 due to the untiring perseverance of men of science, and of a few 

 prominent influential and public-spirited authorities, in keeping 

 before the public the lessons taught by careful inquiries, such 

 as those intrusted to the Royal Commission on Scientific 

 Instruction, into the opportunities afforded for the cultivation 

 of science and the development of its applications, in other 

 countries, as compared with those provided here. 



The success of the efforts made in 1875 by a committee 

 thoroughly representative of every branch of experimental 

 science, to bring together in London an international loan 

 collection of scientific apparatus, and the widespread interest 

 excited by that collection, led the President of the Royal Society, 

 in union with many distinguished representatives of science, 

 to lay before our Department of Education a proposal to establish 

 a national museum of pure and applied science, including the 

 Museum of Inventions, which had already existed since i860 as 

 a nucleus of a science museum, the establishment whereof had 

 formed part of the original scheme of ihe Science and Art 

 Department. The Loan Collection of 1876 did, in fact, and in 

 consequence of the urgent representations then made, first put 

 into practical shape the long-cherished desire of men of science 

 to see an institution arise in England similar to the Conservatoire 

 des Arts et Metiers of France, and it became the starting-point 

 of the national collection, representative of the several branches 

 of experimental science, which has been undergoing slow but 

 steady development since that time, patiently awaiting the pro- 

 vision of a suitable home for its contents. This collection, 

 which illustrates not only the means whereby the triumphs of 

 research in experimental science have been and are achieved, 

 but also the methods by which these departments of science are 

 taught, yields, small as it is, to none of our national museum- 

 treasures in interest and importance. 



In yet another way did that Loan Collection become illustrious: 

 one of the most interesting features connected with it was the 

 organization of a series of important conferences and explanatory 

 lectures, serving to illustrate, and also greatly to enhance, its 

 value, and affording most invaluable demonstration of the way in 

 which such collections must exercise direct influence upon the 

 advancement of science and upon the diffusion of scientific 

 knowledge. These lectures and conferences demonstrated the 

 wisdom of the suggestion made by the illustrious representative 

 of associated science in Leeds eighteen years previously, that 

 public access to museums should be combined with the delivery 



\ NO. 1088, VOL. 42] 



of lectures emphasizing and amplifying the information afforded 

 by their contents. The example there set of thoroughly utilizing 

 for instructional purposes, and for the advancement of science, 

 a collection illustrative of the physical sciences, has since been 

 followed by the Science and Art Department ; illustrative 

 lectures connected with the existing nucleus of a national 

 science collection, have been delivered from time to time, and 

 the objects in the collection are constantly utilized in the courses 

 of instruction of the adjoining Normal School of Science. 



Although the national importance of thoroughly representative 

 and continously-maintained science collections has long been 

 manifest, not only to all workers in science, but also to all who 

 have cared to inquire, even superficially, into the influence of 

 the cultivation of science upon the industrial and commercial 

 prosperity of the country, the labours of a Royal Commission, 

 and of successive Committees, in demonstrating the necessity for 

 the provision of adequate accommodation for such collections, 

 and for their support upon the basis of that afforded to the 

 natural history collections, have been very long in bearing fruit. 

 However, lovers of science, and those who have the prosperity 

 of the country near at heart, have at length cause for rejoicing 

 at the acquisition by the nation of a site in all respects suitable 

 and adequate for the accommodation of the science collections, 

 which, as soon as appropriate buildings are provided for their 

 reception, will not fail, in comprehensiveness and completeness, 

 to become worthy of a country which has been the birthplace of 

 many of the most important discoveries in science, and of a 

 people who have led the van among all nations in making the 

 achievements of science subservient to the advancement of 

 industries and commerce. 



The site selected as the permanent home of our national 

 Science Collections is immediately in rear of the Natural History 

 Museum, and faces the stately edifice, now rapidly progressing 

 towards completion, for the erection of which, as an Imperial 

 memorial of the Queen's Jubilee, funds were provided bv 

 voluntary contributions from every portion of the Empire and 

 every class in the- Empire's nations. The Imperial Institute, 

 the conception of which we owe to His Royal Highness the 

 Prince of Wales, occupies a central position among buildings 

 devoted to the illustration and cultivation of pure and applied 

 science and of the arts — i.e. the Normal School of Science, 

 the Technical College of the City and Guilds of London, the 

 National Schools of Art, the Science Museum, the South Ken- 

 sington Museum, and the Royal College of Music ; to which we 

 may ere long see added a National Gallery of representative 

 British Art. A more fitting location could scarcely be con- 

 ceived for this pre-eminently national institution, which has for 

 its main objects the comprehensive and continuously progressive 

 illustration— of the practical applications of the vast resources 

 presented by the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms to in- 

 dustries and the arts ; of the extent, and the progressive opening 

 up, of those resources in all parts of the Empire ; of the practical 

 achievements emanating fiom the results of scientific research ; 

 and of the utilization of the arts for the purposes of daily life. 

 With the attainment of these objects it will be the function of the 

 Imperial Institute to combine the continuous elaboration of 

 systematic measures tending to stimulate progress in trades and 

 handicrafts, and to foster a spirit of emulation among the artisan 

 and industrial classes. Another branch of the Institute's work, 

 upon which it is already engaged, is the systematic collection of 

 data relating to the natural history, commercial geography, and 

 resources of every part of the Empire, for wide dissemination, 

 together with all current information bearing upon the commerce 

 and industries of the Empire and of other countries, which can be 

 comprised under the head of Commercial Intelligence. The 

 achievement of these objects should obviously tend to maintain 

 intimate intercourse, relationship, and co-operation between the 

 great home and colonial centres of commerce^ industries, and 

 education, and to enhance importantly our power of competing 

 successfully in the great struggle, in which nations are con- 

 tinuously engaged, for supremacy in commercial and industrial 

 enterprise and prosperity. 



To the elaboration of the practical details of a system of 

 operation calculated to secure the objects I have indicated, 

 eminent public-spirited men are now devoting their best energies, 

 with the sanguine expectation of realizing the hope cherished by 

 the Royal Founder of the Imperial Institute, that this memorial 

 of the completion, by our beloved Sovereign, of fifty years of a 

 wise and prosperous reign, is destined to be one of the most 

 important bulwarks of this country, its colonies and depend- 



