56 LOCAL MUSEUMS 



limited ; there must be nothing like the general miscellaneous 

 collection of all kinds of " curiosities," thrown indiscriminately 

 together which constituted the old-fashioned country museum. 

 I think we are all agreed as to the local character predominat- 

 ing. One section should contain antiquities and illustrations 

 of local manners and customs ; another section local natural 

 history, zoology, botany, and geology. The boundaries of the 

 county will afford a good limit for both. Everything not 

 occurring in a state of nature within that boundary should be 

 rigorously excluded. In addition to this, it may be desirable 

 to have a small general collection designed and arranged 

 specially for elementary instruction in science. This part 

 might be brought into connection with the technical instruction 

 given in the county, and will be a valuable indeed, a necessary 

 adjunct to it. Every branch of such instruction should have 

 its special collection of objects to illustrate it ; the teaching 

 will then be made far more real and practical than it other- 

 wise would be. 



Agricultural chemistry and geology, dairy-farming, fruit- 

 growing, and such like subjects, might each have its collection. 

 And these various collections, though kept quite distinct, in dif- 

 ferent rooms if possible, might be all associated in the County 

 Museum and under the same general management. Thus 

 some of the funds devoted by the county to the purposes of 

 technical education might most profitably assist in the forma- 

 tion and maintenance of the County Museum ; indeed, I think 

 myself that if a portion of this money had been in the first 

 place directly allocated to the endowment of a museum in 

 each county more good would have been done for the advance- 

 ment of education than by most of the schemes at present 

 under discussion. At any rate, the classrooms and labora- 

 tories required for the teaching now contemplated should be 

 associated with the museum, if possible under the same roof, 

 and the staff of teachers should assist in the curatorial work, 

 thus forming a sort of central college in every county for 

 technical education, which might send out ramifications into 

 the various districts in which the need of special instruction 

 was most felt, and also might be the parent of smaller branch 

 museums of the same kind wherever they seem required. 



