ADDRESS. lxii 
of life,—should see, in short, the affinities and special attributes of Birds of 
Prey*. 
‘4 series of illustrated typical specimens, occupying some 500 to 800 feet of 
wall space, would give at a glance a connected and intelligible elementary 
view of the classification and structure of the whole animal kingdom ; it would 
stand in the same relation to a complete Museum and Systema Nature as a 
chart on which the principal cities and coast-lines are clearly laid down does 
to a map crowded with undistinguishable details. 
Excellent manuals of many branches of Zoology are now published which 
are invaluable to the advanced student and demonstrator, but from which 
the schoolboy recoils, who nevertheless would not refuse to accept objects and 
pictures as memory’s pegs, on which to hang ideas, facts, and hard names. 
To schoolboys skeletons have often a strange fascination, and upon the struc- 
ture of these the classification of the vertebrata much depends. What boy, 
who had ever been shown their skulls, would call a Seal or Porpoise a fish, 
or believe that a hedgehog could milk cows! as I am told many boys in 
- Norfolk and Suffolk (as elsewhere) do implicitly believe. 
Much of the utility of Museums depends on two conditions often strangely 
overlooked, viz. their situation, and their lighting and interior arrangements. 
The provincial Museum is too often huddled away, almost out of sight, in a 
dark, crowded, and dirty thoroughfare, where it pays dear for ground-rent, 
rates and taxes, and cannot be extended; the object, apparently, being to 
catch country people on market days. Such localities are frequented by 
the town’s people only when on business, and when they consequently 
have no time for sight-seeing. In the evening, or. on holidays, when they 
could visit the Museum, they naturally prefer the outskirts of the town to 
its centre. 
Hence, too, the country gentry scarcely know of the existence of the 
Museum; and I never remember to have heard of a provincial Museum that 
was frequented by schools. I do not believe that this arises from indifference 
to knowledge on the part of the upper classes or of teachers, but to the gene- 
rally uninstructive nature of the contents of these Museums, and their unin- 
viting exterior and interior. There are plenty of visitors of all classes to the 
Museums at Kew, despite the counter attractions of the gardens ; and I know 
no more pleasing sight than these present on Sunday and Monday after- 
noons, when crowded by intelligent visitors, directing their children’s atten- 
tion to the ticketed objects in the cases. 
The Museum should be in an open grassed square or park, planted with 
trees, in the town, or its outskirts; a main object being to secure cleanliness, 
a cheerful aspect, and space for extension. Now vegetation is the best inter- 
ceptor of dust, which is injurious to the specimens as well as unsightly, whilst 
a cheerful aspect and grass and trees will attract visitors, and especially 
families and schools. 
If the external accessories of provincial Museums are bad, the internal 
arrangements are often worse; the rooms are usually lighted by windows on 
one side only, so that the cases between the windows are dark, and those op- 
posite the windows reflect the light when viewed obliquely, whilst the visitor 
standing in front is in his own light. . For provincial Museums, where space 
is an object, there is no better plan than rectangular long rooms, with opposite 
windows on each side, and buttress cases projecting into the room between 
* This, which refers to the teaching of Natural History, is an operation altogether apart 
from training the mind to habits of exact observation ; which, as is now fully admitted, is 
best attained in schools by Professor Henslow’s method of teaching Botany. 
