!54 



NA TURE 



[April 29, 19C9 



IHE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM. 

 " An independent government of the Natural History 

 Museum is one of the most pressing scientific needs of the 

 times." — Michael Foster in igo5. 



THE government of the Natural History Museum, 

 to whicfi forcible attention was directed in a 

 letter to the Press on April 19, published in last 

 week's Nature, stands in urgent need of reform. This 

 has long been recognised by men of science, and, as 

 the writers show in the historical appendix to their 

 letter, the attention of the Government and of the 

 trustees has been directed to it on several occasions 

 in the last forty-three years. Almost every man of 

 science of importance during that period has taken 

 part in one attempt or another to obtain a reform 

 of some of the more serious of the administrative 

 defects. We notice the names of W. B. Carpenter, 

 Charles Darwin, M. Foster, Francis Galton, Hooker, 

 Huxley, Kelvin, Lubbock, Newton, Ramsay, Sclater, 

 Sharpey, Henry Smith, Spottiswoode, Stokes, Turner, 

 Wallace, and all the present professors of zoology and 

 natural history in the universities and principal col- 

 leges of the United Kingdom. Further, two Roval 

 Commissions have reported in the same sense, that 

 of 1850 appointed to inquire into the conduct of the 

 museum, and that of 1870 on " Scientific Education 

 and the Advancement of Science." 



It would thus appear that for some forty-three 

 years (he whole body of scientific opinion has been 

 the same, and has from time to time urged, speaking 

 generally, the same measures of reform, but nothing 

 has been done, and recently the existing arrangements 

 have given rise to grave dissatisfaction. At the outset 

 we desire to point out that, if we understand the 

 letter aright, the signatories, in directing attention 

 to this dissatisfaction, impute no shortcomings to the 

 present working staff of the museum, but they make 

 it clear that the present administrative methods, if 

 persisted in, must lead to failures in the general 

 working of the museum. At present the museum 

 stands at the head of the natural history museums 

 of the world, but, as the Times remarks, " if the 

 present system continues it will not only be over- 

 taken, but rapidly put in the background." 



The question is a complicated one, and in our 

 opinion cannot be properly dealt with until a full 

 inquiry into the working of the present method of 

 government of the museum has been made. We 

 agree with the deputation to the Prime Minister of 

 last July and with the present writers to the Press in 

 thinking that a Royal Commission is demanded, 

 partly because that is the only means by which the 

 information required can be obtained, and partly 

 because of the dignity and importance of the matter 

 to be inquired into. But if a Commission is ap- 

 pointed we hope that the high social position and 

 importance of the existing board of trustees W'ill not 

 be used to render nugatory its conclusions, as seems 

 to have been the case with the two Royal Commissions 

 which have already dealt with the problem. The first 

 point that comes up for settlement is the nature and 

 functions of the controlling body. If the trustees 

 are retained, as we think it desirable that they should 

 he, and in this we are again in agreement with the 

 deputation of last July, it will clearly be necessary 

 that their number should be reduced, and that those 

 of them who are responsible for the Natural History 

 Museum should be separate from those who are re- 

 sponsible for Bloomsbury. The magnitude and diver- 

 sities of the interests involved render this reform neces- 

 sary. 



We are further of opinion that the trustees should 

 be, as is largely the case at present, men of the 

 world skilled in affairs, able to attend regularly, and 



NO. 2061, VOL. 80] 



anxious to do their best for the museum, and that 

 the scientific element, whether professional or other, 

 should not be represented as such. This may seem 

 a hard saying, but the reason for it becomes apparent 

 when we consider the function of the trustees. Their 

 powers should be defined and limited. They should 

 not attempt to interfere in the management, because 

 they have neither the time nor the knowledge to do 

 so effectively. Nor should orders be given in their 

 name, but in that of the director. It may be, and 

 has been, replied to this that they should be reinforced 

 and made a competent body from the " expert " point 

 of view; but a little reflection will show that this 

 cannot be done efl'ectively, because it is practically 

 impossible to find men with the requisite knowledge 

 who can without payment give the time necessary for 

 the proper performance of such work. If it is at- 

 tempted it can only result in the establishment of an 

 inefficient committee of management irregular in at- 

 tendance (see Panizzi's evidence before the Royal 

 Commission of 1850 on this point), and will almost 

 certainly result in dissatisfaction among those schools 

 of naturalists who are not represented in the manage- 

 ment. We think it clear that the management of the 

 museum should be carried on by the director, acting 

 in cooperation with the senior members of his staff", 

 and that the trustees should exercise general super- 

 vision and financial control, and act as a final court 

 of appeal. If the trustees require expert advice other 

 than that given by their director, it should come 

 from a board of visitors such as exists in the case 

 of Greenwich Observatory, and was recommended in 

 the fourth report of the Commission on " Scientific 

 Education and of the Advancement of Science " in 

 1874. 



The next fundamental point which comes up for 

 consideration is the relation between the two museums. 

 This has been fully dealt with in the letter referred 

 to, and we are in complete agreement with what is 

 there said. The present arrangement, by which the 

 director of the Natural History Museum is the official 

 subordinate of the principal librarian at Bloomsbury, 

 is, of course, historically intelligible, but from all 

 other points of view is not only unintelligible but 

 absurd. If our suggestion as to the division of the 

 trustees into two bodies is carried out, this anomalv 

 will naturally disappear. It is perhaps unnecessary 

 to labour the point, but we should like to ask the 

 Astronomer Royal or the director of the National 

 Physical Laboratory how they would like to have to 

 submit to the direction of a man of letters or of an 

 antiquarian, however eminent. 



A third point of great importance relates to the 

 method of appointment of the officers and servants 

 of the museum. The present method, by which the 

 principal trustees appoint, the subsequent control 

 being in the hands of the general body of trustees, 

 stands condemned, not only by the Commission of 

 1874 to which we have already referred, but also by 

 the recent lamentable occurrences as a result of which 

 the museum has lost the services of one of the most 

 distinguished naturalists of Europe. In our opinion 

 it is necessary, in the interest of justice and historical 

 accuracy, as well as of the museum, that these occur- 

 rences should be inquired into. The Prime Minister, 

 in his reply to the deputation last July, said that he 

 was " still unable to grasp in what way the museum 

 failed to perform its functions." The deputation had 

 carefully, and in our opinion rightly, avoided referring 

 to this point and others similar to it. We admire 

 them for their restraint, but had they done so they 

 would have had no difficulty in convincing the Prime 

 Minister of the radical defectiveness of the present 

 method of srovernment. 



