REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 7 



subjects with which it is oven in the remotest degree concerned, the 

 correspondence which this involves now constituting one of its heaviest 

 tasks. 



The history of the Museum, as pointed out by the late Doctor Goode, 

 may be divided into three epochs, which he characterized as follows: 



First, the period from the foundation of the Smithsonian Institution to 1857, dur- 

 ing which time specimens were collected solely to serve as materials for research. 

 No special effort was made to exhibit them to the public or to utilize them, except 

 as a foundation for scientific description and theory. 



Second, the period from L857, when the Institution assumed the custody of the 

 " National Cabinet of Curiosities," to 1876. During this period the Museum became 

 a place of deposit for scientific collections which had already been studied, these col- 

 lections, so far as convenient, being exhibted to the public and, so far as practicable, 

 made to serve an educational purpose. 



Third, the present period (beginning in the year 1876), in which the Museum has 

 undertaken more fully the additional task of withering collections and exhibiting 

 them on account of their value from an educational standpoint. 



During the first period the main object of the Museum was scientific research; in 

 the second, the establishment became a museum of record as well as of research, 

 while in the third period has been added the idea of public education. The three 

 ideas — record, research, and education — cooperative and mutually helpful as they 

 are, are essential to the development of every great museum. The National Museum 

 endeavors to promote them all. 



In the same connection, Doctor Goode also defined the scope and 

 objects of the Museum in the following concise manner: 



It is a museum of record, in which are preserved the material foundations of an 

 enormous amount of scientific knowledge — the types of numerous past investigations. 

 This is especially the case with those materials that have served as a foundation for 

 the reports upon the resources of the United States. 



It is a museum of research, which aims to make its contents serve in the highest 

 degree as a stimulus to inquiry and a foundation for scientific investigation. Research 

 is necessary in order to identify and group the objects in the most philosophical and 

 instructive relations, and its officers are therefore selected for their ability as investi- 

 gators, as well as for their trustworthiness as custodians. 



It is an educational museum, through its policy of illustrating by specimens every 

 kind of natural object and every manifestation of human thought and activity, of 

 displaying descriptive labels adapted to the popular mind, and of distributing its 

 publications and its named series of duplicates. 



AS A MUSEUM OF RECORD. 



In its function as a museum of record the growth of the National 

 Museum has been unprecedented, due mainly to the rapid exploration 

 and development of a rich and extensive country under the liberal 

 and progressive policy of the Government. From scientific institu- 

 tions throughout the world, from foreign governments, and from indi- 

 viduals abundant stores of great value have been received, either as 

 gifts or through the medium of exchange of specimens, and a small 

 appropriation in recent }^ears has permitted of some purchases to 

 supply desiderata. 



