76 REPORT — 1864. 



thoughts ; and it -will also be readily believed that it is only after serious and pro- 

 longed consideration I have come to the conclusion that the plan hitherto pursued 

 in their an-angemont has rendered them less useful to science and less interesting 

 to the public at large than they might have been made under a different system. 

 Let us consider the purposes for which such a museum is established. 



These are two : 1st, the difhision of instruction and rational amusement among 

 the mass of the people ; and 2nd, to aftbrd the scientific student every possible 

 means of examining and studying the specimens of which the museum consists. 

 Now, it appears to me that, in the desire to combine these two objects, which are 

 essentially distinct, the first object, namely the general instruction of the people, 

 has been to a great extent lost sight of and sacrificed to the second, without any 

 corresponding advantage to the latter, because the system itself has been thoroughly 

 erroneous. The curators of large museums have naturally, and, perhaps, properly, 

 been men more deeply devoted to scientific study than interested in elementary 

 instruction, and they have consequently done what they thought best for the pro- 

 motion of science by accumulating and exhibiting on the shelves or in the open 

 cases of the museum every specimen which they possess, without considering that 

 by so doing they were overwhelming the general visitor with a mass of imintelli- 

 gible objects, and at the same time rendering their attentive study by the man of 

 science more difficult and onerous than if they had been brought into a smaller 

 space and in a more available condition. 



What the largest class of visitors, the general public, want, is a collection of the 

 more interesting objects so arranged as to att'ord the greatest possible amount of 

 information in a moderate space, and to be obtained, as it were, at a glance. On 

 the other hand, the scientific student requires to have under his eyes and in his 

 hands the most complete collection of specimens that can be brought together, and 

 in such a condition as to admit of the most minute examination of their differences, 

 whether of age, or sex, or state, or of whatever kind that can throw light upon all 

 the innumerable questions that are continually arising in the progress of thought 

 and opinion. 



Every scientific student requires the cases to be opened, to allow him to examine 

 and handle the specimens, and in the stuffed state this cannot be often done with- 

 out injury 5 and an artist always requires them to be taken out of the case for his 

 purpose. 



In the futile attempt to combine these two purposes in one consecutive arrange- 

 ment, the modem nuiseum entirely fails in both particulars. It is only to be 

 compared to a large store or a city warehouse, in which every specimen that can 

 be collected is arranged in its proper case and on its proper shelf, so that it may be 

 found when wanted ; but the uninformed mind derives little instruction from the 

 contemplation of its stores, while the student of nature requires a far more careful 

 examination of them than is possible under such a system of arrangement, to derive 

 any advantage ; the visitor needs to be as well informed -with relation to the system 

 on which it is based as the curator himself; and consequently the general visitor 

 perceives little else than a chaos of specimens, of which the bulk of those placed 

 in close proximity are so nearly alike that he can scarcely perceive any difference 

 between them, even supposing them to be placed on a level with the eye, while 

 the gi'eater number of those which are above or below this level are utterly unin- 

 telligible. 



To such a visitor, the numerous species of rats, or squirrels, or spaiTows, or larks 

 that crowd the shelves, from all parts of the world, are but a rat, a squirrel, a 

 sparrow, or a lark ; and this is still more especially the case Avith animals of a less 

 marked and less known type of character. Experience has long since convinced 

 me that such a collection so an'anged is a great mistake. The eye both of the 

 general ^-isitor and of the student becomes confused by the number of the speci- 

 mens, however systematically they may be brought together. 



The very extent of the collection renders it difficult eveu for the student, and 

 much more so for the less scientific visitor, to discover any particular specimen of 

 which he is in quest; and the larger the collection, the greater this difficulty becomes. 

 Add to this the fact that all specimens, but more especially the more beautiful and 

 the more delicate, are speedily deteriorated, and in some cases destroyed for all 



