154 ETON NATURE-STUDY 



If possible, arrangements should be made for any living plants or 

 animals that are under observation, to be kept with the other collec- 

 tions. In the school museum, also, a place should be found for good 

 photographs of birds, and insects, and plants, taken by the pupils. 

 Photographs obviate much unnecessary destruction of life, and they 

 have the advantage over specimens that, whereas the latter might 

 be grudgingly given to the school collection, or even kept by the 

 finders, several copies may be easily made from the negative when 

 once it is obtained. 



It is hardly necessary to emphasize the fact that the pupils 

 themselves ought to take part in the work of the school museum, 

 otherwise the collection can never have the same value or interest 

 for them, and much training of a particularly useful kind will be lost. 

 The efforts of the curator will of course be largely governed by 

 the amount of space, of money, and more particularly of time, at his 

 disposal. He should seek rather to show a few things arranged and 

 labelled really well than a number kept in a slovenly way. It is 

 difficult to gauge the bad effects of specimens that are not shown to 

 advantage. 



During the last few years we have had the opportunity of examin- 

 ing the results of much nature-study at the various exhibitions with 

 which we have been connected ; and it is surprising how much effect 

 is lost, and how poor the outcome of really good work is made to 

 appear, by the bad way in which the individual exhibits are very 

 often displayed. Here and there throughout this book we have 

 given such hints as we have been able to find room for ; and we can 

 only say further that specimens should not be crowded together, nor 

 should they ever be exhibited without some definite purpose which 

 is made clearer by means of their labels. Furthermore, it must be 

 borne in mind that anything that is worth mounting should be " put 



