26o Report of a /ounicy Aroiuid the ]Vorld. 



people ; it is not a proper place to attempt the instrucftioii of young 

 children; the material is too abundant and overwhelming; it is 

 putting a fifty-horsepower engine to do the work of a small kitchen 

 pump; it is both unsuitable and also wasted energy. That others 

 have the same opinion is shown by the number (would it were 

 greater!) of school museums now appearing in many parts of the 

 United States. While the town museum so common in England 

 is very desirable and fits with more or less success into the life of 

 the town, the school museum scientifically arranged to illustrate 

 and supplement the regular instru(5tion of the school is far more 

 important; and I have one in mind of which (although I have 

 never visited it) I have very full illustration, even to the labeling. 

 I feel that such a museum as this in the very school building (but 

 not, I understand, excluding other visitors), easily accessible to 

 teacher and class, is of the utmost advantage and importance. 

 Nothing approaching its good arrangement and practical utility 

 (except perhaps in the Raffles Museum in Singapore) was seen 

 outside the United States. I refer to the Public School Museum 

 at Battle Creek, Michigan, of which my friend Mr. Edward M. 

 Brigham is Curator. I wish I had the room here to describe fully 

 the good methods and results of this model school museum. 



A matter I am sorry to touch upon but wdiich seems necessary 

 from what I have seen and heard, is the increasing prevalence of 

 forgeries in almost every department of ethnolog)-. We have on 

 these islands long known and had bitter experience wnth the 

 counterfeit Hawaiian stone idols so commonly made by the Portu- 

 guese and Japanese w^orkmen, and it has long been known that 

 the jade heitiki, so characteristic an ornament of the Maori women, 

 are made in Hamburg, Germany, and also in Auckland, and I 

 have reason to believe that with "poetic justice", some of these 

 purchased in New Zealand from the haka dancers at a high price, 

 have found their way to German museums. There is, however, 

 hardly any form of Polynesian implement commanding a high price 

 (the delicately carved Maori flute, for example) that has not been 

 counterfeited, and often so well done as to "deceive even the elect"; 

 so that I am forced to the belief that there are few, if any, museums 



free from the presence of these intruders in their collections, and 



[40S] 



