THE FIRST BUSINESS OF MUSEUMS 319 



found with them, records of later men, from the earliest 

 dawn of history down to modern times. Everyone is 

 familiar with this duty of the State and of local public 

 bodies, when it is a matter of preserving written and 

 printed records. They are preserved in various public 

 offices and libraries, and are continually being studied 

 by experts (volunteers or official) and copied in print, 

 so as to furnish us with accurate knowledge of the past. 



It is the first and leading business of museums to 

 collect and preserve, with great accuracy as to the locality 

 and circumstances in which each was found, the actual 

 concrete things which are the records of Nature, and of 

 the various stages of man's arts and industries in every 

 region of the world, just as a library or the Record Office 

 preserves manuscripts and printed documents and books. 

 Collections of such specimens are often made by private 

 individuals, and become too cumbersome for him or his 

 heirs to keep in order. They are then frequently given 

 to a public museum, and I regret to say in many pro- 

 vincial museums are neglected and become mere rubbish, 

 even if they were not so when first given. Often such 

 gifts are rubbish before they are received, and^ should 

 never have been accepted. But in a great many instances 

 the local museum of a country town is nothing but a 

 rubbish-heap, because the townspeople will not spend the 

 money necessary to obtain the services of a capable 

 curator and to provide cases, labels, catalogues, and 

 attendance. The town councillors usually know nothing 

 about the museum or the value of the objects gathered 

 there, and do not recognise the duty of making it an 

 orderly and carefully tended storehouse of the records of 

 Nature and antiquity of the neighbourhood. Too fre- 

 quently the town museum is made the means of gratify- 

 ing the vanity of some local collector, who hands over all 

 sorts of ill-chosen, badly preserved specimens to its 



