294 Notes and Comments. 



fact that its Museum aud Library has each a dificrcut director, 

 and not, thank heaven, placed under the care of an ignoramus, 

 so palpably unaware of the object of a museum as is F. B. 



ANOTHER librarian's VIEW. 



To show that all librarians arc not of F.B.'s opinion, 

 we give below an extract from the address of the Principal 

 Librarian of the British Museum, appearing in The Museums 

 Journal for August. We must admit that we would rather 

 accept Sir Frederic Kenyon's opinion on Museums than those 

 of F. B. Sir Frederic says : — ' Whatever we possess in our 

 Museums, whether it be the one talent or the five or the ten, 

 we want to make it effective as an element in the education 

 of our fellow-countrymen. We want to place before them 

 objects of beauty, objects of utility, objects of historical 

 interest, and to press home their appeal, whether by attractive- 

 ness of disposition, or by the help of lectures, of guidebooks 

 or of reproductions, so that the fullest effect may be given to 

 them, and that our museums may be places of refreshment, 

 of instruction and of inspiration. In this way we shall be 

 serving our country, perhaps more than we know. For beauty, 

 do we not need to make fuller use of its refining influence, to 

 counteract whatever there is of sordid or ugly or depressing 

 in our surroundings, and to improve the taste and elevate 

 the thoughts of our people? For refreshment, did not many 

 of us find during the strain and stress of the war that great 

 art and great literature were the best forms of relaxation, the 

 influence of which retained their strength when lesser kinds 

 of mental recreation lost their appeal? And for history, is it 

 not of vital importance in the present conditions of social, 

 economic and political unrest, that the people, to whose hands 

 the power of the State is entrusted, should be taught to realise 

 the great past of the nation ? It is the sense of historic con- 

 tinuity which is the best foundation for sobriety and stability 

 in our public life. The working classes should be taught, not 

 merely theoretic economics, but the history of their country 

 and Empire. Upon this consciousness of the past rests the 

 hope of continuity in the future, and the solution of our 

 political problems by peaceful progress instead of violent 

 revolution. Our museums can cultivate this sense, and in so 

 doing they are playing a valuable part in the education of the 

 people.' 



THE LEEDS MUSEUM. 



Extraordinary general meetings of tlu' members of the 

 Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society were held recently 

 for the purposes of passing resolutions giving effect to the 

 recent decision to transfer the Society's property in Park Row, 

 together with the contents of the Museum, to the Corporation. 



Naturalist 



