34 MODERN MUSEUMS 



required for the proper education of the nation is not such 

 as would produce any sensible impression upon its financial 

 position. 



I may make a still more apposite comparison, and point to 

 the vast sums of money spent by this nation upon the whole 

 subject of education now and a few years ago. The total 

 estimate for what is called " Class IV., Education, Science, and 

 Art," for the financial year 1883-84, amounted to 4,748,556. 

 In ten years it has grown to nearly double that amount, the 

 estimate for 1893-94 being 9,172,216, the increase being 

 mainly due to what is termed " Public Education." The 

 amount spent upon the development of museums is com- 

 paratively insignificant. The British Museum vote (including 

 the library and the natural history branch) has only increased 

 during the same decade from 146,019 to 157,500. 1 The 

 cost of the various museums maintained by the Science and 

 Art Department shows little appreciable augmentation, except 

 in the case of that at Dublin, where I am glad to see 19,035 

 is now put down instead of the 13,602 of the former period. 

 Compared with the whole amount expended upon other 

 methods of education, national expenditure upon museums and 

 art galleries is at present very small. 



In reference to this subject one cannot help considering 

 how much might have been done if only a moderate portion 

 of that large sum of money obtained a few years ago by the 

 tax on brewers, and handed over to the County Councils to 

 spend in promoting technical education, had been used for 

 erecting museums, which might have taken a permanent place 

 in the education of the country. Every subject taught, in 

 order to make the teaching real and practical, should have its 

 collection, and these various collections might all have been 

 associated in the county museum under the same general 

 management. The staff of teachers would assist in the 

 curatorial work, and thus a well-equipped central college for 

 technical education might have been formed in every county, 

 sending out ramifications into the various districts in which 

 the need of special instruction was most felt, and being also 



1 The corresponding figures for the year 1897-98 are: Class IV., Total vote, 

 10,777,537 British Museum, 162,439. 



