870 
NATURE 
[JUNE 30, 1923 

has shown so little progress since the War that the 
councils of a number of leading scientific and technical 
societies have found it necessary to direct attention 
to the matter and to ask that the building be expedited. 
In these times of financial straits it has been a national 
necessity to go slowly in the matter of new public 
buildings, and precedence in such work must be most 
carefully considered. In recent years few things have 
been so generally and so fully recognised as the magni- 
tude of the contributions which physical and mechanical 
science have made to the progress of the country in 
knowledge, in industries, in trade, and in war, and 
accordingly it might have been assumed that the work 
on the Science Museum building, interrupted by the 
War, would have had a place in the. first rank of the 
priority list. Yet here is the Science Museum, which 
is charged with the duty of affording public illustration 
and visual exposition of the great current advances in 
the physical sciences and in the applications of science 
to industry, practically obstructed in all new work by 
lack of space. The functions of the museum are so 
closely related to important national interests that its 
equipment has become a matter of urgency, and the 
facts summarised in our article on the subject suffice 
to show the need for an emphatic appeal that the 
continuance of the work on its building should have 
an assured place in the programme of new national 
buildings. 
The building now in progress is the outcome of 
action taken in pursuance of representations made to 
the Board of Education in 1909 by a deputation and 
a memorial from those prominently interested in the 
advancement of pure and applied science. In present- 
ing the memorial, Sir Henry Roscoe quoted from the 
1874 report of the Duke of Devonshire’s Commission 
on Science, strongly recommending the establishment 
of a museum representative of all branches of physical 
science, both pure and applied. He and those with 
him in the deputation then emphasised the necessity 
for proper housing for such a museum, and the ad- 
vantages of properly housed collections. They pointed 
out, too, that without adequate accommodation the 
Museum could not benefit as it otherwise would by 
gifts of many objects of interest which have high value 
for museum collections. 
The fact is that, in the matter of buildings, this 
museum has lagged far behind the museums that 
represent other branches of knowledge and of culture. 
One may well ask how this has come about. The 
answer is largely one of history. The Science Museum 
is the youngest of our national museums : for although 
science collections were first prepared for museum 
exhibition in 1857, it was not until twenty years later 
that the real possibilities of such collections began to 
NO. 2800, VOL. 111 | ; 

be widely recognised. The earlier collections were 
formed with the view of following up in particular 
directions the impulse which the Exhibition of 185r 
had given to public interest in science and industry. 
At that time the larger groups*of objects came under 
the following headings: Foods, animal products of 
industrial value, building structure and materials, 
models of machinery and educational apparatus. It 
was the Fourth Report (1874) of the Royal Commission 
on Scientific Instruction and the Advancement of 
Science that directed attention to the wide field of 
usefulness that was open to. well-devised science 
collections ; and it was the demonstration afforded by 
the great loan collection of scientific apparatus, formed 
at South Kensington in 1876, that proved the turning- 
point in the aims of the museum collections. - Many of 
the objects lent for that temporary collection became 
the property of the nation and formed the nucleus of 
the collections of to-day. It is right to note here that 
the advance then made in the museum ideal owed 
much indeed to the initiative and to the indefatigable 
labours of the late Sir Norman Lockyer, who was 
secretary to the Commission. 
Almost concurrent with the wider conception of 
the relation of the Museum to pure science came the 
recognition of the importance of preserving and 
exhibiting actual examples of great inventions. The 
many-sided appeals of such objects had led Mr. Bennet 
Woodcroft to form a collection that was, and must 
always be, unique, and the transference of his 
collection to the Department of Science and Art 
in 1883 laid the foundation of the fine collection 
which now illustrates machinery and the history of 
invention. F 
Successive committees have reported on various 
aspects of the uses and needs of the Science Museum. 
Their reports in 1886, 1889, 1897, 1898, and 1900 form 
a long chain of scientific and technical opinion. These, 
however, failed to secure the full measure of official 
backing and of national support which they well 
merited. Yet in their estimates of needs they were 
most modest—perhaps foo modest. Men of science 
accustomed to work in laboratories providing only 
the bare necessaries for their investigations, failed to 
a 
realise that the great museum-visiting public needs 
space in which to move about freely, and requires the 
exhibition of objects rather than a mere opportunity 
of examining them under difficulties. Be that as it 
may, in accordance with scientific habit they limited 
their recommendations, in matter and in measure, to 
needs which could be proved up to the hilt ; but people 
accustomed to the evaluation of reports in other 
interests—reports made, it may be, with greater 
imagination and longer views—had acquired a habit 
