92 



NA TURE 



[November 28, 1901 



collections should be kept far apart, and I doubt very much 

 whether the State or the nuinicipality should undertake to set 

 out and exhibit students' collections. They interfere, in my 

 judgment, with the two great combined objects of a " public 

 museum," namely, first to preserve objects of permanent 

 interest and value, especially those of the locality ; and, secondly, 

 to excite in the general public — the ratepayers who pay for the 

 whole aflfair — a pleasurable and intelligent interest in the pur- 

 poses of the museum by the exhibition of a limited number of 

 fine specimens, not crowded together, but well set out and 

 beautifully housed and cared for. 



Nothing is so hostile to the true spirit and purpose of a 

 public museum as to exhibit in it dirty, ill-mounted, mean 

 and contemptible specimens. Next to this, nothing is so bad 

 for a public museum as to crowd specimens in the cases, so that 

 none produces its due effect. After this, in order of harmful- 

 ness, come illegible and careless labelling and bad classifica- 

 tion. Local museuins suffer from want of funds to pay for good 

 cases and good setting out of specimens, and for the printing of 

 good labels. Still more, perhaps, do they suffer for want of 

 funds to pay for the intelligent services of a curator. But in 

 regard to this, I believe that when there is a great deal of 

 voluntary service and per.sonal help given in a town, with the 

 object of making the museum a worthy show of which the town 

 can be proud, there need not be much difficulty in paying the 

 salary of a curator. I must, however, tell you that he ought 

 not to have other work to do, if you wish him to keep your 

 museum in a state of efficiency and beauty. 



Perhaps one of the greatest difficulties which local museums 

 suffer from is the ill-considered generosity of local collectors. 

 I know of several museums which are rendered more or less 

 ridiculous by the worthless collections of ill-stuffed birds or 

 other such objects, presented and, I regret to say, accepted 

 by well-meaning committees or trustees. No collection should 

 ever be accepted with conditions attached to it unless money is 

 also given for carrying out those conditions, and, as a rule, no 

 collection whatever should be accepted en bloc from a private 

 donor. The friends' or relatives of a deceased collector very 

 often seem to think that a public museum is a place where 

 rubbish may be shot. This should not be allowed. The 

 managers of a museum, with the advice of their curator, should 

 have definite purpose and intention, and should know what they 

 want and try to obtain it by gift or purchase. But they should 

 not allow themselves to be the instruments of vanity or senti- 

 ment, and should never allow their museum to become a 

 receptacle for rubbish, no matter by whom it is offered. 



If I might venture to apply some of these remarks to the 

 Ipswich Museum, I should say the Museum ought first of all 

 to provide an absolutely sale repository for objects of antiquity 

 found in the neighbourhood, extending from flint implements 

 and Roman pots to old china, brass-work and wood-carving ; 

 also for the skins of rare birds and mammals taken in Suffolk, 

 and for the fossils of the wonderful Red Crag, which is unique 

 as a geological phenomenon in England. Such things should 

 be cared for, labelled, and preserved with the greatest care. 

 The best of these things should be exhibited in the best possible 

 cases, with ample space, and in your best rooms, fully labelled 

 and explained. It forms tli,: local collection. But besides these, 

 and as illustrating ihem and the sciences with which they are 

 connected, you should have as many really fine examples of 

 birds and mammals, of fishes, shells, starfish and corals 

 as your space and your funds allow you to show in a really 

 beautiful and attractive way. These also should be fully labelled 

 and explained. That is a sine qua non. They should comprise 

 such things as the skeleton of the horse and the man, side by 

 side ; of the lion and the cat ; and a few other perfect and well- 

 chosen examples of the skeletons of animals. Then you should 

 have the whole or parts of recent elephants to illustrate the 

 Mastodon of the Crag and the Mammoth of the river-bed of the 

 Orwell. The skeleton of the recent bull should be compared 

 with the extinct ones whose bones are dug up in the local 

 gravels. Then a glimpse should be given of some of the 

 utterly strange extinct monsters whose skeletons are preserved 

 in larger museums, from which you can obtain complete casts, 

 scarcely distinguishable from the original specimens. 



I do not think there is any advantage in setting out on i>erches 

 in the glare of daylight, which soon destroys their colour, a 

 complete set of British birds. If you have these and their eggs, 

 they should, excepting a few of the more striking, be unmounted 

 and kept in drawers. 



NO. 1674, VOL. 65] 



In such a Museum as this, plants, of course, will not be neg- 

 lected. A herbarium can readily be formed and kept for 

 reference and record. But for your exhibition cases there are 

 many most interesting features concerning the seedlings, early 

 and later growth, and changes of our native trees, which form 

 most striking and instructive exhibits. In an agricultural 

 county a set of models illustrating the life-history of wheat, 

 such as has lately been set up in the Natural History Museum, 

 would be greatly appreciated. Further, let me say that there is 

 a no more beautiful and interesting class of objects for a public 

 museum than really fine crystals and minerals of various kinds. 

 The history of agates, and of the carnelians and other pebbles 

 from the Felixstowe beach would form a delightful and most 

 attractive case in the Ipswich Museum. But in no instance 

 should there be a mean or dirty or ill-considered specimen in 

 any one of your glass cases. 



I think that the whole of one of the larger rooms in such a 

 museum should be kept shut up and used for placing cabinets 

 and for storing those specimens in glass cases with which it is 

 not desirable to try the patience of the general public. They 

 should be accessible on proper application ; but why show all 

 your doubtful specimens, your obscure though important frag- 

 ments, your faded skins of birds and mammals to the public ? 

 It is not always right to destroy unsightly specimens, but 

 it is never right to offend and disappoint the innocent 

 visitor to a museum by thru.sting them under his eyes. He 

 wishes to be pleased, to learn something — not too much — but 

 still something of natural history. Vcu may lead him on by 

 judicious exhibition to enthusiasm and serious interest in 

 science : then he will be able to tolerate the sight of your sick 

 specimens, but you gain a bad reputation for museums if you let 

 your visitor be disgusted at the very first by incongruity and 

 neglect. 



A county museum is not a place for children or school-teach- 

 ing : it is not Noah's Ark or Madame Tussaud's waxworks, 

 but a place for the delight of grown-up men and women. It 

 should be full of the things which are the pride of those who 

 care for the history and natural life of theii countryside, and just 

 as you do not use a picture gallery to teach the elements of 

 drawing, but for the enjoyment of fine pictures, so your county 

 museum must be for the enjoyment by your grown-up, educated 

 people of the rarities uf nature and of art, and not for the 

 cramming of schoolboys and schoolgirls. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



O.VFORD. — The curators of the University chest have been 

 authorised to spend 1050/. in erecting anew chemical laboratory 

 over some of the existing rooms. 



Prof. E. B. Tylor delivered a public lecture on November 22 

 upon totems and totemism, with special reference to the 

 magnificent totem-post from British Columbia which he has 

 recently jjresented to the I'itt-Rivers Museum. 



Hrasenose College has elected the keeper of the Ashmolean 

 Museum to an cx-offuio fellowship, which will have the effect 

 of increasing his stipend by 100/. a year and augmenting the 

 income of the Ashmolean Museum and the University Galleries 

 by the same sum. 



The 229th meeting of the Junior Scientific Club was held on 

 November 20 ; a paper was read by Dr. Collier on "Health 

 and Athletics," and Mr. A. T. V. Sidgwick read a paper on 

 " Acetone Di-propionic Acid." 



Mr. E. H. Grifi rrns, F.R.S., Fellow of the Sidney Sussex 

 College, Cambridge, has been appointed Principal of the Uni- 

 versity College of South Wales and Monmouthshire in succession 

 to the late Mr. Viriamu Jones. 



The first number of the London University Gazette has ap- 

 peared, and is largely taken up with a statement of the con- 

 stitution of the reorganised University and the conditions under 

 which the work is now being carried on. The text is given 

 of an address sent to Prof. Virchow on his eightieth birthday, and 

 of one to Yale University upon the occasion of the recent bicen- 

 tennial celebrations. 



A COMMENDAHI.K characteristic of the Calendar of University 

 College, London, is the list of original papers contributed by 

 members of the scientific departments of the College to various 



