THE CANADIAI^ JOURNAL. 



NE^V SERI ES. 



No. LXXIII. — MAY, 1871. 



ON MUSEUMS 



OTHER CLASSIFIED COLLECTIONS, TEMPORARY OR PERMANENT, 

 AS INSTRUMENTS OF EDUCATION IN NATURAL SCIENCE. 



BY HENRY SCADDING, D.D. 



Read iefore the Caliadian Institute, January 13th, 1871, as the Presidenfs Address for the 

 Session 1870-71. 



So many persons had the advantage of examining for themselves the 

 Great Exhibition at Paris in 1867, and such full accounts and profuse 

 illustrations of its contents and surroundings were everywhere to be 

 seen, that it seemed for a long while very much like an impertinence 

 whenever any one proceeded to oflFer, in any formal way, additional 

 observations on the subject. 



It was, I remember, some vague feeling of this kind that induced 

 me to refrain from committing to paper and reading to the Institute, 

 during its session of 1867-8, an abstract of a variety of memoranda 

 made in the Exhibition, and some of the thoughts which could not but 

 be stirred within one by a spectacle so marvellous as that Exhibition 

 undoubtedly was : yf, seemed foolish to imagine that there was any 

 point in relation to a scene so palpable and accessible to every one, that 

 had not already been well and sufficiently remarked upon. 



A considerable interval, however, has now elapsed ; and the events 

 of the intervening time have, in the general mind, thrust back the 

 occurrences of 1867 into comparative oblivion. Moreover, some of the 

 most recent of those events have created the probability that such 

 another very perfect international gathering will not again be witnessed 

 for some years to come. 



