42 MODERN MUSEUMS 11 



want of liberality. Each building is a monument in itself 

 of the appreciation of the government of the country of the 

 value and interest of the natural history sciences. So far 

 this is most satisfactory. Now that each is more or less 

 completed, at all events for the present, and its contents 

 in a fair way towards a permanent arrangement, it may 

 not be without interest on the present occasion to give 

 some comparative account of their salient features, especially 

 with a view to ascertain whether and to what extent their 

 construction and arrangement have complied with the 

 requirements of the modern idea of such institutions. 



It may seem ungrateful to those who have so liberally 

 responded to the urgent representations of men of science by 

 providing the means of erecting these splendid buildings, 

 to suggest that if they had all been delayed for a few years 

 the result might have been more satisfactory. The effects of 

 having been erected in what may be called a transitional 

 period of museum ideas is more or less evident in all, and all 

 show traces of compromise, or rather adaptation to new ideas 

 of structures avowedly designed for old ones. In none, 

 perhaps, is this more strikingly shown than in our own, 

 built, unfortunately, before any of the others, and so without 

 the advantages of the experience that might have been gained 

 from their successes or their shortcomings. Though a building 

 of acknowledged architectural beauty, and with some excellent 

 features, it cannot be taken structurally as a model museum, 

 when the test of adaptation to the purpose to which it is 

 devoted is rigidly applied. But to speak of its defects is an 

 ungracious and uncongenial task for me. If it were not taking 

 me too far away from my present subject I would rather speak 

 of the admirable manner in which the staff are endeavouring 

 to carry out the new idea under somewhat disadvantageous 

 circumstances. 



The new zoological museum in the Jardin des Plantes at 

 Paris is a glorification of the old idea pure and simple. It 

 consists of one huge hall, with galleries and some annexes, in 

 which every specimen is intended to be exhibited, more or 

 less imperfectly, on alternate periods, to students and to the 

 general public. The building and cases are very handsome in 



