i OBJECTS OF MUSEUMS 13 



world if once given to such an institution. Their fate is, 

 unfortunately, far otherwise. Dirty, neglected, without label, 

 their identity lost, they are often finally devoured by insects 

 or cleared away to make room on the crowded shelves for the 

 new donation of some fresh patron of the institution. It 

 would be far better that such museums should never be 

 founded. They are traps into which precious sometimes 

 priceless objects fall only to be destroyed ; and, what is still 

 worse, they bring discredit on all similar institutions, make the 

 very name of museum a byword and a reproach, hindering 

 instead of advancing the recognition of their value as agents 

 in the great educational movement of the age. 



A museum is like a living organism it requires continual 

 and tender care. It must grow, or it will perish; and the 

 cost and labour required to maintain it in a state of vitality 

 is not yet by any means fully realised or provided for, either 

 in our great national establishments or in our smaller local 

 institutions. 



Often as it has been said, it cannot be too often repeated 

 that the real objects of forming collections, of whatever kind 

 (apart, of course, from the mere pleasure of acquisition some- 

 times the only motive of private collectors), and which, 

 although in very different degrees, and often without being 

 recognised, underlie the organisation of all museums, are two, 

 which are quite distinct, and sometimes even conflicting. The 

 first is to advance or increase the knowledge of some given 

 subject. This is generally the motive of the individual 

 collector, whose experience shows him the vast assistance in 

 forming definite ideas in any line of research in which he may 

 be occupied that may be derived from having the materials for 

 its study at his own command, to hold and to handle, to 

 examine and compare, to take up and lay aside whenever the 

 favourable moment to do so occurs. But unless his subject is 

 a very limited one, or his means the reverse, he soon finds the 

 necessity of consulting collections based on a larger scale than 

 his own. Very few people have any idea of the multiplicity 

 of specimens required for the purpose of working out many of 

 the simplest problems concerning the life-history of animals 

 or plants. The naturalist has frequently to ransack all the 



