348 On the Educational Uses of Museums. 
of little use to the people. The most useful museums are those 
which are made accessory to professorial instruction, and there 
are many such in the country, but almost all confined to purposes 
of professional education, and not adapted for or open to the gen- 
eral public. The museums of our Universities and Colleges are, 
or the most part, utilized in this way, but the advantages derived 
from them are confined to a very limited class of persons. In 
this Institution, an endeavor has been made to render its contents 
subservient to the cause of education and instruction; and the 
course which is here taken miay be imitated with advantage in 
the provinces, where there are not unfrequently colleetions of 
considerable extent turned to small account for the benefit of the 
residents, a large proportion of whom in many instances are igno- 
rant of their very existence. Yet it is to the development of the 
* provincial museums, that I believe we must look in the future for 
the extension of intellectual pursuits throughout the land, and 
therefore I venture to say a few words respecting what they are 
and what they should be. 
hen a naturalist goes from one country into another, his first 
inquiry is for local collections. He is anxious to see authentic 
and full cabinets of the productions of the region he is visiting. 
He wishes, moreover, if possible, to study them apart—not min- 
gled up with general or miscellaneous collections,—and distinelly 
arranged with special reference to the region they illustrate. For 
all that concerns the whole world or the general affinities’ of ob- 
jects he seeks the greatest national collections, such as the British 
Museum, the Jardin des Plantes, the Royal Museums at Berlin” 
and Vienna. But that which relates to the particular country he 
In almost every town of any size or consequence he finds a pub- 
lic museum, but how often does he find any part of that museum 
devoted to the illustration of the productions of the district? The 
very feature which of all others would give interest and value to 
the collection, which would render it most useful for teaching 
purposes, has in most instances been omitted, or so treated as to 
be altogether useless. 
Unfortunately not a few country museums are little better than 
‘ raree-shows. They contain an incongruous accumulation of things 
curious or supposed to be curious, heaped together in disorderly 
piles, or neatly spread ont with ingenious disregard of their rela- 
ions. ‘The only label attached to nine specimens out of ten 1s, 
