MUSEUM ORGANISATION 



of the public duty of the State or of any municipal institution 

 had, however, nowhere entered into the mind of man at the 

 beginning of the last century. Even the great teaching 

 bodies, the Universities, were slow in acquiring collections ; 

 but it must be recollected that the subjects considered most 

 essential to the education they then professed to give were not 



\] those which needed illustration from the objects which can be 

 brought together in a museum. The Italian Universities, 

 where anatomy was taught as a science earlier and more 

 thoroughly than anywhere else in Europe, soon found the 



t/ desirability of keeping collections of preserved specimens, and 

 the art of preparing them attained a high degree of excellence 

 at Padua and Bologna two centuries ago. But these were 

 generally the private property of the professors, as were 

 nearly all the collections used to illustrate the teaching of 

 anatomy and pathology in our country within the memory of 

 many now living. 



Notwithstanding the multiplication of public museums 

 during the present century, and the greater resources and 

 advantages many of these possess, which private collectors 

 cannot command, the spirit of accumulation in individuals 

 has happily not passeo! away^ although usually directed 

 into rather different channels than formerly. The general 

 museums or miscellaneous collections of old are now left to 

 governments and institutions which afford greater guarantee 

 of their permanence and public utility, while admirable 

 service is done to science by those private persons with 

 leisure and means, who, devoting themselves to some special 

 subject, amass the materials by which its study can be pur- 

 sued in detail either by themselves or by those they know 

 to be qualified to do so. Such collections, if they fulfil their 

 most appropriate destiny, ultimately become incorporated, by 

 gift or purchase, in one or other of the public museums, and 

 then serve as permanent factors in the education ofjhg-Jiation, 

 or j3Jtha~e~feirer world. 



It would be passing beyond the limits of time allotted to 

 this address, indeed going beyond the scope of the Association, 

 if I were to speak of many of the subjects which have pre- 

 eminently exercised the faculties of the collector and formed 



