268 Museums and Education. 
museum work is admirably shown in the Scottish National 
Museum at Edinburgh, which was explained to the members 
by Dr. Ogilvie at the Edinburgh meeting some years ago. 
The present seems a particularly opportune moment to extend 
the technical side of museum work by the exhibition of models 
of machinery, etc. 
After lunch the members adjourned to the Natural History 
Museum, South Kensington, where Dr. S. F. Harmer gave the 
results of some systematic experiments made with regard to 
the fading of museum specimens exposed to light. Various 
types of object, zoological and botanical, were exposed to 
different lights, natural and artificial, direct and diffused, 
under various kinds of glass, and the results were most marked. 
In some cases the colour had entirely faded in twelve months ; 
in others very little, if any change, was noticeable. Full advan- 
tage of these elaborate tests will doubtless be taken by those in 
charge of provincial museums. Methods of preserving flowering 
plants, sea-weeds, etc., with the natural colours, were described 
by Dr. Rendall, by Mr. Tate Regan, Dr. Smith Woodward 
and others, and in this way the smaller museums reap the 
benefit of experiments, sometimes very costly, made by the 
National Institutions. 
Mr. H. H. Peach (Leicester), read a paper on ‘ The Design 
and Industries Association and the Museum.’ He pointed out 
many ways in which museums might help the local arts and 
crafts, and drew attention to the deplorable manner in which 
such encouragement was frequently neglected in local museums. 
He advocated the proper exhibition of objects to illustrate 
present and past woodwork, iron-work, needle-work, basket- 
work, embroidery, toys, etc. It was shown that in many 
cases local trades and industries had entirely disappeared in 
recent years as a result of foreign competition, but that there 
was now an opportunity of reviving many of these, and to a 
large extent museums were in a position to encourage this 
revival. 
Prof. W. R. Lethaby, of the Royal College of Art, made some 
interesting remarks from the point of view of a‘ Museum Lover.’ 
He took up the attitude of the ordinary educated visitor, 
and, in humorous vein, pointed out many ways in which the 
exhibition, classification and labelling of museum specimens 
may yet be improved, both from the point of view of the 
casual visitor, and of the more serious student. 
Nurse Prior (Leicester), described ‘A Children’s Welfare 
Section in the Museum,’ at Leicester, where an attempt had 
been made to arrange an exhibition of interest to mothers. 
In this were shown specimens to illustrate proper and incorrect 
methods of feeding, clothing, and rearing children generally, 
which seems to be more or less appropriate at the present time. 
Naturalist, 
