Pope. — Museum Methods. 57 



the fnl] si.onificance of the great chang-es that have trans- 

 pired in later years. No longer is such an institution only 

 a permanent storehouse of varied specimens, no longer is the 

 system of 'upholstering' and relegating objects to dusty 

 shelves forever, in vogue, etc. On the contrary, the progres- 

 sive museum is today rapidly becoming an educational 

 power in the community and a broad-casting station through 

 the means of carefully prepared exhibits of value (involving 

 the most improved methods of technique of skilled techni- 

 cians) and free illustrated lectures on almost every topic con- 

 nected with the animal, plant and geological resources of 

 the country. It is directly in contact with the people, and, 

 with possibly the exception of the public library system, the 

 progressive museum with its exhioiMon halL^ and free, num- 

 erous, illustrated lectures directly 'rubs elbows' v.'ith a 

 greater mass of the people anaiuiUy perhaps than any other 

 educational or other public institution. Such an institution 

 is rapidly becoming ihe ol'ilclal headquarters of the people 

 in numerous large cit^'es for the accummulation and broad- 

 casting of knowledge on all niatters pertaining to the bio- 

 lon-ical and geological resources, as we!' as other subjects, 

 within its scope. Its information, handed out in manifold 

 Avays, is popular in form, within the understanding of the 

 average citizen, it is not clothed and tainted with the ped- 

 antry of the university class room and laboratory. Again, 

 unlike the books of a library or the wearisome, dry, statisti- 

 cal pages of a public document, the information is brief, 

 digested down to the practical, ultimate facts and presented 

 to the public from the public lecture platform by word of 

 mouth, with stereopticon, with motion-film, printed on 

 specimen labels and in other forms. Further, this informa- 

 tion, unlike that of any other institution, is materially sup- 

 plemented by actual specimens of the fishes or other objects 

 under consideration, by actual apparatus, photographs, 

 charts, diagrams, models, etc., connected with the same. 

 For the proper dissemination of the tangible results of the 

 fisheries service, it may be here stated that all of the im- 

 portant and salient facts are carefully 'culled out' from the 

 latest documents when received, the proceedings of such a 

 society as this are digested to obtain the most recent im- 

 provements in methods and the final results in popular form 

 up to date are printed upon the museum specimen labels, 

 incorporated in public lectures and broadcast to the public 

 at large. Thus it will be readily seen that the modern pub- 

 lic museum is constantly radiating 'daylight' on matters that 

 concern the public pocketbook, of w^hich the average citizen 

 has hitherto been ignorant of, unable to get authentic know- 

 ledge of, or understand. By the same token it will be seen 



