10 



MUSEUMS AS EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



By M. Y. Williams. 



Ask the average Canadian to name our educa- 

 tional institutions and it is scarcely likely that 

 "Museums" would be included in the list. Ask 

 a dweller in New York City the same question, 

 and if he omitted "Museums" he would show that 

 he failed to appreciate the advantages at his very 

 doors. 



Modern pedagogy recognizes the importance of 

 studying objects rather than the description of ob- 

 jects; the modern museums display, in mstructive 

 and attractive manner, things gathered from the 

 great and wonderful world around us. We have 

 primarj' and secondary schools, and higher up are 

 the colleges and universities, but museums include 

 among their attending students the toddling infant, 

 and the grey-haired patriarch. 



Let us consider some few of the things which 

 great museums have to teach us. One of the newest 

 as well as one of the greatest of the museums on this 

 continent, is the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, situated in New York City. Its exhibits are 

 multitudinous and truly impressive. Who can view 

 understandingly the wonderful mounted specimens 

 of the reptilean monsters of the dim geologic past, 

 without having a broader, more profound, more 

 accurate view of the brief moment of time in which 

 we live? Who can stand before those creations of 

 art, the background bird groups, without having a 

 better understanding and appreciation of the beauties 

 of our bird life in its natural setting? Such work is 

 as truly the work of the artist, as are paintings and 

 statues! The wonderful array of minerals and the 

 priceless collections of gems and precious stones il- 

 lustrate the best that the rocks have to reveal. As 

 wanderers from outer space, there are to be seen 

 some of the largest meteorites known. Among them 

 are included Peary's wonderful specimens from 

 Greenland, one of which is as large as an ex- 

 plorer's tent. 



And what of the National Museum at Washing- 

 ton? Few will fail to recall the wonderful groups 

 of American aboriginies, transfixed as it were near 

 their habitations in the midst of their daily tasks, 

 with their implements, and food supplies nearby ; 

 nor can the fine groups of African game animals be 

 forgotten, including rhinoceros, buffaloes and lions, 

 collected by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. 



From the Field Museum of Natural History, 

 Chicago, the visitor carries away a better under- 

 standing and clearer picture of African antelope, 

 hyenas, zebras and leopards in their natural habitat 

 than pages of d'^scriplive writing could have given. 



The Milwaukee Public Museum takes the visitor 

 back to the days of early colonial life in America, 

 and depicts a street scene, say in Massachusetts, with 

 small frame houses, homemade furniture, dove cotes, 

 and people dressed in simple homespun. Fine 

 groups of mammals and birds and many other ex- 

 hibits are there, but the colonial village is unique. 



The New York State Museum at Albany illus- 

 trates in wonderfully realistic form, the early fish- 

 like creatures of the geologic past, and one of the 

 earliest trees known from fossil remains. The 

 Iroquois indian groups, prepared from indian 

 models, under the direction of a Mohawk Indian, 

 perpetuate the memories of Indian life as it was 

 when Champlain was founding Canada. 



And there are other great museums at Pittsburg, 

 Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia, and elsewhere, all 

 teaching their lessons to the visitor. Volumes could 

 be written descriptive of them, each writer depicting 

 those exhibits which appeal to him most. 



It must not, however, be supposed that the public 

 exhibits make up the entire museum, nor that all 

 specimens are placed on exhibit. Great as is the 

 popular educative value of exhibits, many specimens 

 must also be preserved for comparison and study by 

 specialists and research students. Zoological speci- 

 mens generally fade when placed on exhibit, and 

 groups of mammals, birds and insects have to be 

 replaced by new material from time to time. So 

 it happens that for every specimen on exhibit hun- 

 dreds or in many cases thousands of valuable speci- 

 mens may be carefully stored away, where they are 

 available for study, or to replace other exhibits. 



Besides the exhibitions and the special researches 

 carried on by modern museums, lecture halls are pro- 

 vided, where members of the staff lecture to students 

 from schools and colleges and to the public in 

 general. 



So far reference has been made to the museums of 

 the United States only; let us now turn to the 

 museums of Canada. Among these are the pro- 

 vincial Museum of British Columbia, at Victoria, 

 the Banff Park Museum, the Redpath Museum of 

 Natural History at McGill University, Montreal, 

 the Museum of the Natural History Society of New 

 Brunswick at St. John, the Royal Ontario Museum 

 at Toronto, and the Geological Survey Museum 

 housed in the Victoria Memorial Museum at Ottawa. 



The British Columbia Museum is particularly 

 mentioned by visitors because it contains a complete 

 collection of the game animals of the province. The 

 Banff Museum appeals to tourists because of its 



