CHAPTER II 



AMERICAN MUSEUMS 



The Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. 



THE immense energy of the American people in all that 

 relates to business, locomotion, and pleasure, is to some 

 extent manifested also in their educational institutions, 

 and in approaching this great and all-important subject 

 they possess some special advantages over ourselves. 

 They are comparatively free from those old-world es- 

 tablishments and customs whose obstructiveness so often 

 paralyzes the efforts of the educational reformer, and their 

 originality of thought and action has thus freer scope ; 

 they are not afraid of experiments, and do not hastily 

 condemn a thing because it is new ; while, in all they 

 undertake they are determined to have the best or the 

 biggest attainable. Hence it is that colleges and uni- 

 versities for women, schools where the two sexes study 

 together, institutes for the most complete instruction in 

 technology and in all branches of experimental science, 

 and the combination of manual with mental training as 

 part of the regular school course, are to be found in 

 successful operation in various parts of America, though, 

 with rare exceptions, only talked about by us ; while in 

 most of the higher schools and colleges science and 

 modern literature take equal rank with those classical 

 and mathematical studies which still hold the first places 

 in Great Britain. 



