ii THE NEW MUSEUM IDEA 37 



suggested that 100 a year should by all means be set aside 

 for this purpose ! 



It is frequently my lot to be consulted by anxious parents 

 of sons who develop a taste for museum work, as to what such 

 a taste will lead to if cultivated. I need hardly say that, 

 however much I may wish our ranks to be recruited by such 

 enthusiastic aspirants, boys often of great ability and promise, 

 I cannot conscientiously offer much encouragement. The 

 best I can say is, that I hope things will be better in the 

 future than they are at present. As far as the Metropolitan 

 museums are concerned there has been some improvement, 

 and I think that indications are not wanting that this 

 improvement will continue and extend. 



I have referred at the beginning of this address to the 

 great amount of recent literature upon the museum question, 

 consisting largely of depreciation of the old ways of arranging 

 museums, of suggestions for their improvement in the future, 

 and mainly of the development of what may be called the 

 new museum idea. What this idea is was tersely expressed 

 nearly thirty years ago by the late Dr. John Edward Gray in 

 his address to the British Association at Bath (1864) as 

 President of Section D, when near the close of his long 

 career as administrator of a collection which by his exertions 

 he had made the largest of the kind in the world. Dr. 

 Gray laid down the axiom that the purposes for which a 

 museum was established were two " first, the diffusion of 

 instruction and rational amusement among the mass of the 

 people, and, secondly, to afford the scientific student every 

 possible means of examining and studying the specimens of 

 which the museum consists." He then continued : " Now, 

 it appears to me that in the desire to combine these two 

 objects, which are essentially distinct, the first object namely, 

 the general instruction of the people has been to a great 

 extent lost sight of and sacrificed to the second without any 

 corresponding advantage to the latter, because the system 

 itself has been thoroughly erroneous." 



This was a remarkable admission, coming from a man who 

 had been brought up in, and had acted throughout the greater 

 part of his life upon, the old idea ; but it clearly expressed 



