TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 95 



aud other collectious, as so IDiely to be carried into efi'ect, that the jjroper time had 

 anived for pressing on Government the necessity of some changes in the adminis- 

 ti-ation of that institution. The most important of these changes was the transfer 

 of the control of the Museum from the Board of Trustees to a single officer appointed 

 hy Government and amenable to Parliament. W hile admitting the good which the 

 Trustees had done, and that their intentions had always been to benefit the institu- 

 tion, he maintained that the constitution of the Board, composed of men who, with 

 one or two exceptions, felt no interest in natural history, rendered it impossible that 

 they could do it justice. They naturally handed over their power to their chief 

 officers, who were thus invested with power without responsibility and beyond 

 appeal ; and although the public had great reason to be satisfied with the services 

 of these officers, there were points on which difference of opinion existed which 

 should not thus be placed beyond the reach of effectual remonstrance. The Board, 

 from the same causes, were slow to alter the existing order of things, or to make 

 the necessary alterations required by change of circumstances and times. He 

 gave the following illustration of this phase of their rule :— When the Museum 

 was young and ^\dthin manageable boimds, it was placed under one or two 

 head curators, minerals and fossils under one head, and zoology under another. 

 Each of these heads was allowed an assistant, and it was made a rule that 

 these assistants should not be above thirty years of age, the idea being 

 that they should be a sort of apprentices, who should begin young, and, on their 

 respective superior's decease or retirement, be ready to take his place. This ride 

 in itself was not a bad one. It secm-ed always one good man and one learning to 

 become a good man. If the superior officer died before his assistant was qualified 

 to succeed him, it was not essential that the assistant should be put into his place ; 

 and as the regulation as to age applied only to assidanfs, it was no barrier in the 

 way of putting an older man in the upper place. But as the collection grew, it 

 was found that more heads were wanted, and then came the error. Instead of 

 appointing new heads coequal with the previous heads for each department, the 

 number of assii<fnnt cm-ators was increased, aud one set apart to each different 

 depai-tment, so that each department had, and has now, only one man to it. If any 

 of them die or retire, there is no person to take their work ; and being nominally 

 assistant curators, although practically head curators, no one can be appointed to 

 their place who is above thirty years of age — in other words, no one who knows 

 his business ; for the study of the Natural vSciences is so vast that to constitute 

 vouth in such appointments a, sine qitd non, is reaUy to say that the candidate must 

 be appointed before he has acquired them, and before he has sho^vn any power of 

 acquirino- them. The British Museum has thus the unenviable distinction of beingthe 

 sole place in the whole world where ignorance of a man's duties is not only no impedi- 

 ment to his appointment but a qualification — nay, not only a qualification, but actually 

 a sine qiui non. Had the Trustees seen the working of this, they would, instead of ap- 

 pointing assistant curators, have appointed head curators, with such assistant curators 

 as were necessary. And then for each department requiring it we should have had 

 two officers — one a competent, experienced man of position and weight in the 

 scientific world, the other a young assistant, to whose charge ignorance of his 

 duties could not be laid, seeing that his duties vfere to learn, not to teach. The 

 author considered it plain that we must come back to this original arrangement. 

 These so-called assistant curators, who have long adminstered their respective 

 departments with credit to themselves and the iluseum, must be recognized as 

 head curators, and assistant curators, properly so called, supplied to them ; while 

 head curators, selected from the best ranks of men of science, should be appointed 

 to those other departments which require them. The author pointed out some of 

 the defects and inequalities in the arrangement of the materials in the Museum — 

 more especially in the Tnvertebrata. An immense deal had been done in procuring 

 materials, but from want of hands the greatest part of it was practically useless to 

 men of science. He ccmi-idered that what was now wanted was less of the acqui- 

 sition of novelties than tlio utilization of those which the Museum already pos- 

 sessed ; and he pressed the importance of establishing, to a much greater extent than 

 has hitherto been done, Ihe system of exchange of duplicates with other museums 

 and individuals which has been found so valuable by other institutions. 



