Director’s Annual Report. 7 
those of most large museums in cold climates where they have 
need of artificial heat during a portion of the year, and the winter’s 
cold checks the activities of insect pests, while here pests of that 
nature are perennial and far exceeding in variety and abundance. 
In spite of the best of cases, collections of birds, insects, plants, 
must be frequently inspected, and all museum workers know that 
this inspection if properly done, needs room, it cannot be done ina 
public gallery in the presence of careless or inquisitive visitors. 
I have harped so often on this string that I refrain from weary- 
ing you farther with what seems to all of us engaged in museum 
work the most important, and sooner or later the surely fatal defect 
of the Bishop Museum. I will only say that while this monument 
to Mrs. Bishop should be a permanent one there is little permanency 
about it except in the stone walls and stone implements, and toa less 
extent some of the wooden implements and the shells, corals and 
volcanic specimens. I should be recreant to my duty as Director of 
this Museum if I did not utter this warning. We have made too 
much of present exhibition for vain public gratification and have 
provided too little for the permanency of the treasures amassed with- 
in the Museum walls, which when perished can never be replaced. 
I will not leave this subject with the impression that I do not 
believe a museum such as this has a part to fulfil toward the public 
in exhibiting to a wise extent, that is so far as by so doing it can 
convey instruction and even pleasure to visitors, but there is far 
greater good to be done to far greater numbers by such collections 
as ours in a very different way. They must be studied, here on 
the spot, by competent men, and there must be conveniences for 
such work. ‘The results thus obtained will reach farther and last 
longer than the praises (often unmixed with knowledge) which 
fall from the transient visitor, however complimentary, and how- 
ever pleasing to one’s self-love. 
Hawaiian Hall is large enough, if duplicates could be stored 
elsewhere, to exhibit all that any visitor of a few hours need know 
of Hawaiian life, human, animal, vegetable or mineral, and Poly- 
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