354 British Association Notes. 



Library Service of the British Museum (Natural History). It has thus 

 become an official undertaking, and Mr. Sherborn will rank as " Special 

 Assistant " on the staff. This is most gratifying to all parties concerned, 

 for it ensures the safety and completion of the manuscripts which have 

 accumulated during the past twenty-two years. There are now some 

 664,000 slips, representing 332,000 entries in duplicate, and a great mass 

 of manuscript notes on the dates of books which have passed or will pass 

 through the compiler's hands. Much of this has been printed separately, 

 or been included in the official catalogue of the libraries of the British 

 Museum (Natural History). All manuscripts and documents connected 

 with the work have been handed over by the Committee to the 1 rustees 

 of the British Museum for preservation in the Natural History Museum, 

 where they may be seen, on application during official hours, by those 

 interested.' 



Prof. Archibald Barr's presidential address to the Engineering Section 

 was particularly refreshing, and appealed to engineers to have a little 

 regard for beauty in their work. For example, construction in steel is a 

 very modern art, and it has been in the hands of engineers who usually 

 neglect, if they do not despise, the study of the fine arts. But why have 

 architects, with their artistic training, not succeeded in producing struc- 

 tures in steel as admirably as those they design in stone ? Partly, no 

 doubt, because they are hampered by tradition. They have not yet fully 

 reali-sed the difference in spirit that must characterise fit designs in the 

 newer and the older materials. No one can be an artist in any material, 

 the possibilities and limitations of which he has not fully mastered. Again — ■ 

 if a common engineer may venture the criticism — the architect, as a rule, 

 has not sufficiently mastered the science of construction, and has been too 

 much addicted to taking the easy course of adopting a decorated treatment 

 instead of striving to secure elegance of structural scheme as such ; and 

 decoration, at least on anything like traditional lines, is wholly incom- 

 patible with the best possibilities of steel as a structural material. Progress 

 is being made in the art of designing efficient and graceful structures in 

 metal, but the best results can only be attained by a designer who has a 

 thorough scientific and technical knowledge of the properties of steel and 

 the processes of its manipulation, on the one hand, and cultured artistic 

 sense and capacity on the other. These should not be considered as 

 appropriate equipnients for separate professions. 



At the Section of Education, under the title of ' The Museum, the 

 School, and Nature-Study Teaching,' Mr. A. R. Horwood was bold enough 

 to state that ' museum officials have at last realised the necessity of 

 .studying the needs of the visitors to the collections under their charge. 

 The search for knowledge through the impetus given by free education has 

 made museunis, along with similar institutions, centres for reseaixh 

 Moreover, it is obvious that the museum is merely part of a general scheme 

 of education that each child in its educational progress may (or should) 

 make use of, in the same way as an art or technical school, free library, 

 and so on. Hitherto, however, this fact has been lost sight of. A parallel 

 feature of modern education has been the rise of Nature-study. Evolved 

 from the old object-lessons, it has now emerged as an experimental subject 

 into the clear light of advanced methods. This being so, it is a subject to 

 encourage. Within the last ten years museums have been much visited 

 by schools. But it is unfortunate that the true inter-connection between 

 the two has been ignored, and the museum has not been used to advantage. 

 There has been no co-operation. Teachers have used museums in their 

 way without inquiry. Recently, however, realising the necessit}^ of ensuring 

 the effective use of Leicester INIuseum, lectures have been delivered to the 

 elementary school teachers upon the material in the museum and upon 

 the general principles of scientific subjects with considerable success. 

 This system is advocated elsewhere.' It is satisfactory to learn that the 



Naturalist, 



