340 On the Educational Uses of Museums. 
next point, and then bent to the next in like manner, and so on 
until the entire curve is completed. Before ruling this the eye 
should criticise it carefully, as a check on graphic errors. For 
fine projections the hardest pencils are best; and in inking, the 
lines should be drawn as delicately as clearness permits. 
hen no metre scale is at hand, the tabulated distances can 
be converted into yards by using the conversion tables, or by 
the constants of relation between units; or, when the greatest 
accuracy is not important, a metre scale can readily be constructed 
from a yard or foot scale by proportionality. Thus, rule two 
parallel scales, one of yards and one of five-sixths (#) yards, and 
draw a third parallel, whose distance outside the yard-scale is 
2:368sth of that between the yard and five-sixth yard scales. 
Through the similar graduations draw straight lines; these will 
give a metre scale their intersections. If space permits, a 
point may be substituted for the five-sixths (2) yard scale. The 
projection once constructed, may be used independent of the unit 
of the tables. 


Arr. XXXVI.—On the Educational Uses of Museums; by 
DwWaRD F'orses, F.R.S., &c.* 
Tur third Session of the Government School of Science ap- 
plied to Mining and the Arts commences to-day. The Director 
and my Colleagues have assigned to me this year the duty of 
opening the courses. I shall avail myself of this opportunity to 
offer some remarks upon the leading and characteristic features 
of the Institution, considered as an educational Museum, and to 
make some observations upon the instructional uses to which 
Museums may be advantageously applied. 
_ The school of applied sciences here established is the only 
instance in Britain of an organized instructional institution arising 
out of a Museum, and being maintained in strict connection and 
relation with its origin. 'This is not an accident, but an event 
contemplated from the commencement of the Geological Survey. 
It is an experiment on a considerable scale with a greater pul- 
pose,—for, with a limited though rapidly improving machinery, 
it is intended to advance educational aims that have a vital im- 
portance in their bearing on the future prospects of this country: 
It is an endeavor by a State-mechanism to cast the seeds of Sci 
ence over the broad fields of British industry,—not indiscrim- 
inately, but especially in those places where there is a go 
thirsting for their germination. We who are appointed to be 
* Introductory Lecture at the i i ete; Museum of 
Practical Geslocs: London, 1858, oe aS 
_ 
