I 



A WEEKLY ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



Of Nature trusts the 



" To the solid grouna 

 nind which builds for aye."- 



-WORDSWORTH 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1873 



THE GOVERNMENT AND OUR NATIONAL 



MUSEUMS 



WE referred last week to the intention of the Govern- 

 ment to transfer one of the Metropolitan Museums 

 under the control of a responsible Minister of the Crown, 

 to the fifty irresponsible Trustees of the British Museum, 

 this step being contemplated without referring the question 

 either for the opinion of the Science Commission, now 

 inquiring into these subjects, or for the authority of Par- 

 liament. We have learnt since that the measures for 

 effecting this change are in active progress. Lord Ripon 

 and the Trustees of the British Museum having agreed that 

 the transfer was to be made if practicable. Sir Francis 

 Sandford, Mr. MacLeod, and Major Donnelly, on behalf of 

 the Science and Art Department ; and Messrs. Winter 

 Jones, Franks and Newton, on behalf of the Trustees of 

 the British Museum ; are now busy as Commissioners to 

 find out if the transfer be practicable, and they have 

 been e.xploring the South Kensington Museum for 

 this purpose during the last week, taking notes of its 

 contents, inspecting its refreshment rooms, its waiting 

 rooms and the like. 



What the Commissioners will propose as practicable is 

 of course known only to themselves, if it be known even 

 to them. Thus much, however, is known : the South 

 Kensington Museum must remain the head-quarters of 

 Science and Art Teaching, unless that too is to be put 

 under the Archbishop of Canterbury and his co-Trustees, 

 and if not, then there must be a dual Government in one 

 and the same building, unless Mr. Lowe's project be aban- 

 doned. Now the dual Government means that one officer 

 will represent the Archbishop of Canterbury and his 

 co-forty-nine trustees in the Museum, and another the 

 Lord President of the Council. The officer representing 

 the Department will take orders from the Lord President. 

 The officer representing the Trustees must from time to 

 time go to Mr. Winter Jones to ascertain what the fifty 

 Trustees have decided, and to receive his instructions 

 how their decision is to be interpreted. Mr. Winter 

 Vol. IX.— No. 210 



Jones' labours, already said to be ill-remunerated, will be 

 increased, and his well-known powers of organisation 

 sorely taxed. If there be two things which nature puts 

 in ferocious antagonism one to another, it is two public 

 officers under different responsibilities. No envy, hatred, 

 or malice like that between two public officers. How 

 every officer adores the Treasury ! how the Audit Office 

 loves the Treasury ! what models of civil Letters the 

 Treasury always writes to the Officer of Works, and 

 so on. 



The public has had already a specimen of this 

 kind of dual Government at the South Kensington 

 Museum, which has had disastrous results for Science. 

 When the "Boilers'' were first erected in 1856, 

 the Commissioners of Patents had assigned to 

 them a portion at the south end of the building for exhi- 

 biting those Mechanical and Scientific objects, which 

 under a fiction were supposed to have derived their origin 

 in " Patents." It was necessary that the visitors to all 

 parts of the " Boilers " and to the Picture Galleries should 

 pass through the " Patent Division." The Lord President 

 made sensible rules for admitting the public on three days, 

 open from 10 a.m. to 10 p..m., and three days called 

 " Students' days," when persons not students paid sixpence 

 each, or ten shillings a year, the object being to have three 

 days free from crowds and kept quiet for study. After 

 a while the Commissioners of Patents were scandalised at 

 thus receiving public money (they are the instruments for 

 taking seventy thousand a year from Inventors and 

 misapplying it to General Taxation) and they said they 

 preferred crowds every day as the most convenient 

 public arrangement. The authorities came to open 

 discord on the point, and the matter could only be 

 resolved by separating the " Patent " from the other 

 collections. So the Patent Commissioners built a sepa- 

 rate entrance for themselves. What has been the result ? 

 About eight millions of visitors to the South Kensington 

 Museum who would otherwise have seen the " Patent 

 Museum " have not done so, and the Commissioners have 

 deprived themselves and their museum of the moral support 

 of these great numbers. And what has been the result of 

 this ? The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been allowed 



