CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES. 39 
subscribe, so as to get special attention on subjects outside of the studies 
of their present curators. 
The Chairman was sure that the meeting felt much obliged to Professor 
Petrie for this very suggestive paper. He hoped that gentlemen 
wishing to discuss it would be as brief as possible in their comments, as 
they had much business before them. 
Mr. W. E. Hoyle said that he had no legal locus standi there, but had 
come on the suggestion of the Assistant General Secretary, who had sent 
him a copy of Professor Petrie’s paper, and asked him to take part in the 
discussion. He hoped no action would be taken in this matter in such a 
way as to prevent co-operation with the Museums Association. Professor 
Petrie’s scheme seemed to him a most simple and practical one, and he 
thought it would be a good thing for those specially interested in it to 
confer with the officials of the Museums Association with regard to it. 
The chief difficulty which he foresaw in carrying it out was the almost 
incredible inertia of museum committees. The Museums Association met 
once a year, and everyone who had attended its meetings had admitted 
their value in enabling curators to exchange ideas upon all museum 
questions. It had been in existence about six years, but hitherto very 
few societies had cared to go to the expense of sending their curators to 
its meetings. In the museum over which he had the honour to preside 
there were four assistant curators who were doing good work. It was 
probably not in Professor Petrie’s mind when he drew up his scheme for a 
Federal staff. Yet he was quite prepared to urge upon his Committee the 
adoption of Professor Petrie’s plan. 
Mr. M. H. Mills could testify to the thoroughness with which museum 
questions were discussed at meetings of the Museums Association. If his 
proposition were in order, he would move that this question be referred to 
the Museums Association. 
The Chairman thought Mr. Mills’ proposition inadmissible. 
Mr. G. Abbott cordially supported Professor Petrie’s suggestions, and 
thought that an increase in the number of Unions of Naturalists’ Societies 
would greatly tend towards their general adoption. 
Mr. N. M. Richardsor did not think there could be any doubt as to 
the advantages of Professor Petrie’s scheme, though he was afraid that the 
Committee of the Dorset County Museum were hardly in a position to 
incur the expense. 
Professor Johnson thought it would be a good thing if the Museums 
Association could become a Corresponding Society of the British Associa- 
tion, so that one or more of its chief officials might be present at discus- 
sions of this kind. He had listened with considerable interest to Professor 
Petrie’s paper, but he would protest strongly against the suggestion that 
the curators of our local museums should be converted into mere care- 
takers, as he thought the tendency should be in the opposite direction. 
It would be well to urge our local societies to employ as their curator a 
specialist of some kind, and to give him a chance of rising above the 
position he held at first, rather than to make him feel that he would 
always be a mere caretaker dependent wholly on some one who came 
down occasionally from some centre of enlightenment. He knew an 
admirable curator in the north of Ireland, seventy years of age, and a 
specialist in three or four branches, who was then living on a salary of 
70. per annum, and had to dust the tables, open the door, and act in 
