PREFACE 



HAVING lately, during an enforced period of restraint from 

 active occupation, had leisure to look back upon the events of 

 a somewhat busy life, it occurred to me that besides the 

 administration, in succession, of two large public museums, * 

 and some original scientific investigation, the results of which 

 can be of interest only to the very few, there have been occa- 

 sions which have involved a contact with wider and more 

 varied circles. 



Though the records of these occasions have doubtless been 

 mainly of passing or local concern, it is possible that some- 

 thing may be found among them worth placing in a more 

 accessible and permanent form than in the scattered journals 

 or pamphlets in which they can only be found at present. 



Such of these essays and addresses as seemed suitable for 

 republication in the present collection mainly group them- 

 selves under three distinct branches of the many into which 

 the intellectual and educational activity of our age is manifested. 



1. Those which are here placed first are, more closely than 

 any others, connected with the practical work of my life, the 

 advancement of scientific knowledge through the development 

 of museums. Here I cannot refrain from expressing my deep 

 sense of the loss this cause has recently sustained by the 

 premature death of Dr. Brown Goode, Director of the United 

 States National Museum. Fortunately for science he was 

 able to formulate his latest views " On the Principles of 

 Museum Administration " in an elaborate paper contributed 



