NATURE 



237 



THURSDAY, JULY 15, iSSo 



THE NEW MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 



MR. WATERHOUSE'S new building at South 

 Kensington has, mo bcheve, been formally handed 

 over to the trustees of the British Museum, and as will be 

 seen by their Report, which we give in another column, it 

 is in contemplation, or was so at the time the report was 

 drawn up, to remove several portions of the natural 

 history collections on to the new site during the present 

 year. Up to this time, however, little has been done in 

 the matter. The only beasts and birds to be seen in the 

 new building are those stone images which it has pleased 

 Mr. VVatcrhouso to place upon the corbels without and 

 upon the pillars within. It is perhaps only fair that if the 

 inside is devoted to natural history the outside should be 

 similarly devoted to unnatural history, and architects must 

 have their way. It may also be observed th,-.t if the trustees 

 ha\e really taken possession they have sadly neglected their 

 garden department, for the vacant space round the build- 

 ing, which was nicely laid out last year, has been allowed 

 to become overrun with weeds and rubbish. There are 

 two subjects, we believe, which have caused some delay 

 in the proposed removal — the ciuestions of the library and 

 of the mode of government of the new institution. The 

 last-named and most important point being, as the 

 Secretary of the Treasury had stated, still " under the 

 consideration of my Lords," we will make so bold as to 

 tender them a few words of advice on the former subject 

 which also requires their serious attention. 



.■\ Library of Reference is, as we need hardly tell the 

 readers of Nature, an indispensable addition to a 

 Museum of Natural History. No scientific work can be 

 done without it. Of this we may remark the trustees 

 appear hardly to have been aware, if, as we arc informed 

 is the case, there is no special room set apart for a library 

 in the new museum. Had the trustees put aside a thousand 

 a year, out of their annual grant of 10,000/. for printed 

 books, for this purpose, when it was first determined to 

 remove the natural history collections ten years ago, there 

 would have been by this time in existence a library fully 

 adequate for the purpose. But no provision of this sort 

 appears to have been thought of, and it is only within the 

 last year or so, when the building is ready and the time 

 is come to remove the natural history collections into 

 their new quarters, that any application for the neces- 

 sary funds to buy a library has been made to the 

 Treasury. 



Now the special function of the Secretary of the Treasury 

 is, as everybody knows, to keep down e.xpcndilure. We 

 need not, therefore, be surprised if when the request was 

 made to him for 30,000/. to buy a library of natural history 

 books Sir Ralph Lingen stood rather aghast, and de- 

 manded time to consider the subject. But even were this 

 great official most benevolently disposed towards the new- 

 natural history museum and ready to produce the sum 

 demanded at once it would not by any means enable the 

 trustees to meet the object in view. It is by no means 

 simply a case of going into the market and ordering all the 

 books required of the first bookseller. The greater number 

 of the works required arc out of print, and only to be 

 Vol. XXII. — No. 559 



picked up at scattered intervals at second-hand shops. To 

 endeavour to purchase them all at a moment's notice 

 would be simply useless. This is another reason why the 

 policy above recommended of collecting the required 

 library by slow degrees should have been adopted. 



There is now in fact only one way out of the difficulty. It 

 is a very simple one, but we fear the trustees will not like 

 it. The naturalists and students of the British Museum 

 have hitherto had the use of the Great National Library, 

 which contains all the necessary scientific books. Let these 

 necessary books be removed along with the collections to 

 South Kensington, not as a gift, but as a loan to the new 

 institution, ^et the trustees devote an annual sum of 

 such an amount as they can conveniently employ to their 

 redemption— lliat is, to the purchase of second copies of 

 these scientific books. As soon as the duplicates are 

 received at South Kensington let the originals be re- 

 turned to the British Museum. Thus the Great National 

 Library will ultimately recover its own completeness, 

 while at the same lime the new museum of natural history 

 at South Kensington will be able to start work with a 

 perfect library — which could in no other way be provided 

 for it. Moreover instead of having to find some 23,000/. 

 or 30,000/. at the present moment, the Treasury will be 

 able to spread the necessary expenditure over several 

 years, during which it is certain that many of the rarer 

 volumes unattainable at the present moment will come 

 into the market. The only objection to this plan that we 

 can see is that it will bo sometimes necessary to refer an 

 applicant for a particular volume at the reading-room of 

 the British Museum to South Kensington. But when it 

 is once understood that the natural history books are at 

 South Kensington people will very soon learn to go there 

 for them. 



The real difficulty in the present situation is that the 

 control of the whole museum is in the hands of the prin- 

 cipal librarian, who naturally enough prefers the interests 

 of the library to that of the natural history. He is glad 

 enough to get rid of the beasts and birds, but when you 

 ask him to give up, even temporarily, a portion of the 

 books it is quite another question. Very few of the 

 trustees who are nominally his masters care anything for 

 natural history, so that from that quarter no intervention 

 can be looked for in favour of the scheme we have put 

 forward. The only way in which it can be carried out is 

 by the I'is nuijor of the Treasury, which, as the plan is 

 not only advantageous, but also economical, should surely 

 be exerted in its favour. 



If the Government had taken the advice of the Duke 

 of Devonshire's Commission, and handed over the natural 

 history collections to a director under the control of the 

 Department of Science and Art, there would have been 

 some one sufficiently interested to make a stir on the 

 subject. As the matter now stands the principal librarian 

 can of course do as much as he pleases, and will, 

 no doubt, keep his books in Bloomsbury as long as 

 possible. 



ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 



LORD NORTON and his friends seem determined to 

 take every opportunity of hunting down the present 

 system of education in Government elementary schools. 



