ii EXPENDITURE ON MUSEUMS 33 



may instance, as a conspicuous example, the splendid museum 

 of antiquities at Naples) that the immense advantage to 

 be gained by ample space and appropriate surroundings in 

 aiding the formation of a just idea of the beauty and interest 

 of each specimen contained in it can be properly appreciated. 

 Correct classification, good labelling, isolation of each object 

 from its neighbours, the provision of a suitable background, 

 and above all of a position in which it can be readily and 

 distinctly seen, are absolute requisites in art museums as well 

 as in those of natural history. Nothing detracts so much 

 from the enjoyment and advantage derived from a visit to a 

 museum as the overcrowding of the specimens exhibited. The 

 development of the new museum idea, to be spoken of later on, 

 will be one way by which this can be remedied in the public 

 galleries ; but if museums are what they ought to be, and 

 what I venture to believe they will be in the future, the 

 question of space on a considerably larger scale than has 

 hitherto been thought of will have to be faced. This is of 

 course mainly a matter of expense, and after all but a small 

 matter compared with expenditure now considered necessary in 

 other directions. There are persons who think the country 

 made a tremendous effort in building so much as is yet finished 

 of the new Natural History Museum in the Cromwell Eoad, 

 and shake their heads at the expenditure asked for either to 

 complete that establishment by the erection of the wings at the 

 sides, or to finish the neighbouring South Kensington Museum 

 in such a manner as worthily to hold its collections, both of 

 art and science. Others would grudge the further expansion 

 of the magnificent series of treasures of ancient and mediaeval 

 art in the British Museum at Bloomsbury, of which the 

 country has such just reason to be proud. Let such persons 

 consider that the largest museum yet erected, with all its 

 internal fittings, has not cost so much as a single fully- 

 equipped line -of -battle ship, which in a few years may be 

 either at the bottom of the sea, or so obsolete in con- 

 struction as to be worth no more than the materials 

 of which it is made. Not that I am deprecating the 

 building of ships necessary for our protection, but rather 

 wishing to show that the cost of such museums as are still 



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