7« 



NATURE 



[May 31, 1877 



himself; it is thrown aside as soon as its use, which is 

 solely a " pass " use, is over, and done with. Mr. Sidg- 

 wick sa>s, with perfect fairness, that " the study of Greek is 

 one thing, the knowledge of the Alastis and the study of 

 Mr. Bohn's translation of it another." That the University 

 should have voted in this sense by sixty-three votes to 

 forty, and expressed its desire to treat the mathematicians 

 as entitled to a similar relief by twenty-seven to fourteen 

 is a conclusive proof that the world moves even at Oxford. 

 Many of those who are best acquainted with that Uni- 

 versity indeed declare that it is there only that it does 

 move— at all events, that it is only there that it moves 

 by "leaps and bounds," as British commerce used to 

 do in the happy days of Mr. Gladstone's ministry ! Cer- 

 tainly the votes of Oxford are often more liberal than 

 those of London, and we cannot doubt that whenever the 

 new Commission sets to work it will find as much im- 

 pulse as obstruction from that great University. Of Cam- 

 bridge itself it has ceased to be true to say that she 

 maintains her usual attitude of magnificent repose. The 

 universities are anxious to reform themselves if they 

 only know how — the Commissioners will be happy to 

 assist them if they only get power enough — and we may 

 perhaps hope that a few " thinkers " may get something 

 out of the reconstruction better than the very plain living 

 with which their " high thinking '' has hitherto been so 

 commonly coupled. 



THE NEED OF MUSEUM REFORM 



FEW of the many subjects now pressing themselves 

 on the attention of the public are more important 

 than that of museums, of the work which they are doing 

 now in general education, and what they may reason- 

 ably be expected to do in the future. It is one which 

 has occupied my mind for many years, and on which I 

 venture to offer the following remarks. 



The collecting instinct, the desire to accumulate what 

 strikes the fancy, is so universal in all minds lifted above 

 the satisfaction of the mere animal needs, that its absence 

 is to be viewed as an infirmity or misfortune analogous to 

 colour blindness or deafness. It is present in some form 

 or another in most savages, and even in some birds, such 

 as the bower-bird. It is based ultimately on the principle 

 of curiosity combined with that of selfishness. Poor and 

 much to be pitied is the man who has it not. The collec- 

 tions which result from it bear the stamp of the individual 

 who makes them, and arc as various as his tastes. 

 They may be conveniently termed museum units, which, 

 like molecules, have a tendency to coalesce into bodies of 

 greaterorless size,and thus constitute museums. Theseare 

 of high or low organisation according as the units keep or 

 lose the stamp of the individual, and have been moulded 

 into one living whole or are dissociated. They are highly 

 organised and valuable if the parts are duly subordinated 

 to each other and brought into a living relationship ; they 

 are lowly organised and comparatively worthless if they 

 remain as mere assemblages of units placed side by side 

 without organic connection and without a common life. 



Unfortunately in this country the provincial museums 

 mostly belong to this latter class. It is that which takes 

 shelter for the most part in the top rooms of Mechanics 

 Institutes and in the holes and corners of Free Libraries 

 and Museums. In one instance ,'which occurs to me, you 



see a huge plaster cast of a heathen divinity surrounded 

 by fossils, stuffed crocodiles, minerals, and models of 

 various articles such as Chinese junks. In another, a mu- 

 seum unit takes the form of a glass case containing a frag- 

 ment of human skull and'a piece of oatcake labelled " frag- 

 ment of human skull very much like a piece of oatcake." 

 In a third, wax models are exhibited of a pound weight of 

 veal, pork, and mutton chops, cod fish, turnips, potatoes, 

 carrots, and parsnips, which must have cost the value of 

 the originals many times over, with labels explaining 

 their chemical constitution, and how much, flesh and fat 

 they will make — ^just as if the public were unacquainted 

 v;ith those articles of food, and required any information 

 as to what these names really cover. Strangely enough 

 this museum unit appears modern. In very many 

 museums art is not separated from natural history, nor 

 from ethnology, and the eye of thelbcholder takes in at a 

 glance the picture of a local worthy, a big fossil, a few 

 cups and saucers, a piece of cloth from the South Seas, 

 a war club or two, and very possibly a mummy. The 

 result of such an association as this, of articles which have 

 no sort of relationship with the rest, is to convert the 

 whole into rubbish, using the word in the Palmerstonian 

 sense of being " matter in the wrong place." I do not 

 mean to say that museums of this low order are useless. 

 In default of better they are useful, just in proportion as 

 they encourage the collecting instinct in the beholders. 

 They may ultimately arrive at the higher stage of develop- 

 ment. It is, however, a reproach to this country that 

 museums of this low type should be found at tliis time, 

 not merely in the smaller towns, but in some of the more 

 important centres of population. They constitute a serious 

 blot on our educational system, which we are striving to 

 make as perfect as possible, since they are worse than 

 useless for purposes of teaching. Instead of the natural 

 harmony of things, they put before the mind a fortuitous 

 concourse of atoms which is a very chaos. 



While this state of things prevails largely in this 

 country, there is no room for astonishment that museums 

 of natural history hold the position which they do hold in 

 the public mind. They are looked upon as haunts of the 

 mere specialist, and as altogether outside any scheme 

 for the advancement of the higher studies. If they are 

 sufficiently attractive to be visited, they are treated as 

 places of amusement, in which " a happy day " may be 

 spent, instead of places of instruction. They are some- 

 times avowedly arranged for that end. It rarely enters 

 into any one's head that collections are as absolutely ne- 

 cessary for the advancement of natural history studies, as 

 books to the literary student, though it is allowed on all 

 hands that natural history is of great importance in 

 general education. Until this anomaly be removed by 

 the re-arrangement of the museums which require it, ard 

 the establishment of new ones, it is hopeless to expect the 

 natural sciences to flourish as they should flourish, or for 

 them to assume the importance which they deserve in the 

 studies of this country. To the obvious remark that the 

 fruits of English natural science are not worse than those 

 of our neighbours, it may be answered that what has been 

 done is the result of personal effort overcoming obstacles, 

 and succeeding in spite of disadvantages. The fact that 

 some men can swim does not render life-belts unneces- 

 sary for those who cannot. 



