48 MODERN MUSEUMS n 



and is scarcely examined except by professional investigators. 

 In every properly constructed museum the collections must, 

 from the very beginning, divide themselves into these two 

 classes, and in planning for its administration provision should 

 be made not only for the exhibition of objects in glass cases, 

 but for the preservation of large collections not available for 

 exhibition, to be used for the studies of a very limited number 

 of specialists." 



The museum of comparative zoology at Harvard, founded 

 by the late Louis Agassiz, and now ably administered and 

 extended by his son, Alexander Agassiz, is a conspicuous 

 example of the same method of construction and arrangement. 

 But as I can say nothing of these from personal knowledge, I 

 am obliged to leave out any further reference to them on the 

 present occasion. 



From what has just been said it will be gathered that in 

 Europe, at least, an ideal natural history museum, perfect in 

 original design as well as in execution, does not exist at 

 present. We have indeed hardly yet come to an agreement 

 as to the principles upon which such a building should be 

 constructed. But as there are countries which have still 

 their national museums in the future, and as those already 

 built are susceptible of modifications, when the right direction 

 has been .determined on, I should be glad to take this 

 opportunity of putting on record what appears to me, after 

 long reflection on the subject, the main considerations which 

 should not be lost sight of in such an undertaking. 



In the first place, I have endeavoured to work out in 

 detail, in its application to natural history, that most original 

 and theoretically perfect plan for a museum of exhibited 

 objects in which there are two main lines of interest running 

 in different directions and intersecting each other, which we 

 owe to the ingenuity of General Pitt-Eivers. This was 

 explained in his address as President of the Anthropological 

 Section of the British Association at Bath in 1888, and again 

 in a lecture given about two years ago before the Society of 

 Arts. 1 Upon this plan the museum building would consist of 

 a series of galleries in the form of circles, one within the 



1 Journal of the Society of Arts, 18th December 1891. 



