BIOLOGICAL TRAINING AND STUDIES. 851 



Association generally, extrinsic means as well as the intrinsic merits 

 of the well-loved man conspiring to keep his memory fresh amono* 

 us, and the bearer of that name, Edward Forbes, has left it as his 

 opinion that ' It is to the development of the provincial museums 

 that, I believe, we must in future look for the extension of intel- 

 lectual pursuits throughout the land.' (Lecture 'On the Educa- 

 tional Uses of Museums,' delivered at the Museum of Practical 

 Geology and published in 1863. Cited by Toynbee, * Hints on the 

 Formation of Local Museums,' 1863, p. 46.) With the words of 

 Edward Forbes I might do well to end what I have to say, but 

 I should like to say a word as to the policy of confining the contents 

 of a local museum to the natural-history specimens of the particular 

 locality. No doubt the first thing to be done is the collection of 

 the local specimens, and this alike in the interest of the potential 

 Cuviers and Hugh Millers who may be born in the district, and in 

 the interest of the man of science who may visit the place when on 

 his travels. But so long as a specimen from the antipodes or from 

 whatever corner of our world be really valuable, and be duly cata- 

 logued before it is admitted into the museum, so that the lesson it 

 has to teach may be learnable, I do not see my way towards 

 advising that foreign specimens be excluded. It is to my mind 

 more important that all specimens should be catalogued as soon 

 as received, than that any should be rejected when offered. 



I must not occupy your time further with this portion of my 

 address. Let me first say that a person who wishes to know what 

 a Field Club can do for its members, and not for them only, but 

 for the world at large, will do well to purchase one^ or any number 

 more than one, of the ' Transactions of the Tyneside Naturalist's 

 Field Club ; ' and that if there be any person who thinks that White's 

 * Selborne ' relates to a time and place so far off that there can be 

 no truth in the book, and who yet would like to try upon himself 

 the working of the fourth of the disciplinary agencies of which I have 

 spoken, that, namely, of reading some local Natural History on the 

 spot of which it treats, and comparing it with the things them- 

 selves in situ, let him repair to Weymouth, and work and walk up 

 and down its cliffs and valleys with Mr. Damon's book in his 

 hands. 



I shall not be suspected in this place and upon this occasion, nor, 

 as I hope, upon any other, of a wish to depreciate the value of 



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