Lucas: Purposes and Aims of Modern Museums 119 



anniversary Saturday of the laying of the cornerstone of Rich- 

 mond Borough Hall. That event took place on May 21, but it 

 was the Saturday of the same week in May as this is ; and I hope 

 that today, by inaugurating a new era in the history of this asso- 

 ciation, we are laying the cornerstone of a society which in the 

 years to come will far outgrow its present accommodations. 



Dr. Frederic A. Lucas, Curator-in-chief of the Museums of 

 the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, gave the following 

 address on 



Purposes and Aims of Modern Museums 



We are gathered today to take part in the opening of a new 

 museum, the latest, but we may be sure not the last, of the public 

 museums of Greater New York, and it has been suggested that 

 I say a few words on the relation of the museum to the public. 

 This would seem an easy task for one whose entire working life 

 has been spent in museum work and yet I confess I have found 

 the task a hard one. 



Why do we have museums at all; what are they for; why in 

 this very practical age are millions expended in establishing them, 

 what does the public receive in return for the money it has 

 invested ? 



All these are perfectly fair questions, th,e kind that any busi- 

 ness man or city official might well ask if called upon to aid in 

 founding or sustaining a museum, and yet they are by no means 

 easy to answer off hand. Merely to answer the question why we 

 have museums would take much time, for like most things, 

 museums did not spring into existence all at once but are the 

 product of long years of growth and evolution, and they are still 

 growing and changing. 



The purposes of museums have been well defined by some of 

 the men best acquainted and most intimately connected with them 

 and I cannot do better than give you two of these definitions. 

 According to John Edward Gray, museums are for " the dif- 

 fusion of instruction and rational amusement among the masses 



