289 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



MUSEUMS IN THE PRESENT AND FUTURE. 



' The intelligent world has of late been passing through 

 one of its cyclical phases. It would hardly be suspected that 

 in these times the daily tale of news from home and abroad 

 should be so wanting in human interest that it was necessary 

 to seek for recondite subjects. Nevertheless, astute editors 

 or others on the staff of our daily newspapers have been con- 

 strained to discover that all is not well in our artistic atmo- 

 sphere, and they call attention to the sad need oj^^^rftlieihef 

 in our surroundings, that our street archita^ff^^V" 

 showing signs of grace, lacks coherence and 

 statues are deplorable, our public monume^s 

 dignity or design, and that, in fine, the neces^ty U 

 tion and method is called for as much fo\ our 

 betterment as it is on the material side. A n 

 tinguished men, architects, painters, and criti 

 of all else, have come forward, and their plans for a 

 glorified earth have been placed before a grateful world.' 



SIR HERCULES READ's ADDRESS. 



The preceding paragraph is extracted from the Presidential 

 address of Sir Hercules Read to the Society of Antiquaries, 

 which appears in No. 3 of that really admirable publication, 

 The Antiquaries Journal. As Sir Hercules has now retired 

 from his position at the British Museum, he is able to speak 

 more freely, and he does so. He has much to say about the 

 management of the British Museum and other national 

 Museums. He criticises the Victoria and Albert Museum 

 and other Museums in London, points out the way in which 

 they overlap each other, and makes a strong appeal for the 

 separation of the department of books from the present British 

 Museum building, and for the formation of a National Library, 

 before all the available central sites are utilised. He points 

 out that ere long every available space in the Bloomsbury 

 building will be required for Museum purposes, and he suggests 

 that a separation of the departments of books from the building 

 will do away with what he considers to be an anomaly in 

 having the Principal Librarian the governing officer of the 

 British Museum. The address is well worthy of careful 

 consideration, though we must admit that if Sir Hercules 

 had been the Director of either the Irish, Welsh or Scottish 

 Museums, or of one of the large provincial Museums, his 

 opinions might have been modified or differently expressed. 



BRITISH MAMMALS. 



We are delighted to find that after a lapse of live years 

 ' A History of British Mammals,' by Gerald E. H. Barrett- 

 Hamilton and Martin A. C. Hinton, has reappeared, and 



1921 Sept. 1 



