58 America}! Fisheries Society. 



that the modern progressive museum is, as has been claimed 

 in the early part of this paper, serving as a direct agent be- 

 tween yourself acd the people at large even though its 

 services as such have hitherto not been solicited or openly 

 considered in that capacity by you, "Constant dropping of 

 water may wear away stones," so the saying goes, and in 

 like manner the continual process of popularly enlightening 

 the public on your methods, objects and actual results, by 

 disseminating such information annually to hundreds of 

 thousands of people through the exhibits and lectures of a 

 single institution alone will no doubt sooner or later have a 

 decided effect upon the sentiment of the people and not im- 

 probably affect your necessary annual appropriations. In 

 short, it is becoming universally recognized that such public 

 institutions can and do possess the power to considerably 

 mold public sentiment along the directions already men- 

 tioned. 



2. The modern progressive public museum serves as the 

 people's headquarters and agent for information within its 

 scope. 



Inquiry will develop the fact that the United States alone 

 has hundreds of museums of all types, but that among them, 

 from the Atlantic to the Pacific, are a number of general 

 museums dealing with natural history that are well scattered 

 among the larger and most densely populated communities. 

 In recent times the tendency seems to be for the establish- 

 ment of public museums just as for public aquaria. It is 

 perfectly natural therefore that, in any community possess- 

 ing a natural history museum, such an institution should be 

 regarded as the ofiicial headquarters of the community for 

 information within its scope and to it the general public and 

 newspapers go with every possible kind of inquiry on natural 

 history. Should I attempt to elaborate upon the number 

 and nature of such inquiries and demands that include all 

 phases of fishery production, care and conservation ranging 

 from the remedies for goldfish diseases, or the identification 

 of local fishermen's captures to the interpretation of Govern- 

 ment statistics, you might be both interested and amused. 

 Obviously you will see why the modern museum is unlike its 

 predecessor in policies and exhibits. In the old days the 

 people appeared to be satisfied with the well-known system- 

 atic collections of animals and other objects placed in tire- 

 some array upon shelves with only a Latin name upon a 

 piece of pasteboard to differentiate one specimen from 

 another. Now such .iiethods are decidedly out of date. 

 The people v\^ant to see the various forms of life represented 

 in natural environment to show their relation in nature, one 



