OCTOBEE 18, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



503 



tion of the advance of pure and applied 

 science in the progress of the state. 



We may well ask what are the distinctive 

 features of an ideal state museum as con- 

 trasted with great civic museums like the 

 American Museum of Natural History of 

 New York, the Field Museum of Natural 

 History of Chicago, the Carnegie Museum 

 of Pittsburgh, or a great national museum 

 like that in Washington? Why should a 

 state have its own museum, apart ftom the 

 historical and political reasons which have 

 located this institution at Albany? The 

 answer is largely given in the preceding 

 portions of this address. The museum is 

 the natural scientific center of the state 

 government; it is the natural depository 

 of all the material brought together by the 

 state surveys, it is the natural custodian of 

 all purely scientific state records; it is the 

 natural center of the study of the re- 

 sources of the state as a political unit; it 

 must maintain its capacity for productive- 

 ness in pure scientific research — pure sci- 

 ence has been the justification of the state i 

 museum from the beginning of its history. 

 For example, it is justified in issuing a 

 monograph on the birds of New York state, 

 as it is now doing, because this kind of pub- 

 lication belongs to the museum historic- 

 ally, because the education of the people of 

 the state in the important matter of the 

 economic value of bird life must be accom- 

 panied by the preservation and exhibition 

 of the materials on which the volume is 

 based. In brief, the distinctive sphere and 

 scope of the state museum corresponds 

 with the scientific interests and welfare of 

 the people within the geographic boun- 

 daries of the state. 



Yet in no relation is the function of the 

 state museum more full of promise than in its 

 relation to state education, a relation which 

 it already maintains biit which should be 

 greatly extended in the future. The pe- 



culiar teaching quality of a museum is that 

 it teaches in the way nature teaches, by 

 speaking to the mind direct and not 

 through the medium of another mind. 

 This principle of natural instruction is be- 

 ing carried out in the development of the 

 exhibits of the museum, and through pho- 

 tography these exhibitions may well be ex- 

 tended to the schools of the state. The 

 museum should be the center from which 

 the visual and practical instruction of the 

 children of the state in science should ema- 

 nate. The pulse of the new museum should 

 be felt in every country school in the state 

 and in the schools of every one of its cities 

 which has not developed its own museum 

 center. The museum should supply the 

 schools with collections of scientific mater- 

 ials; it should distribute traveling demon- 

 strative collections in natural history. In 

 brief, it should supply the State Educa- 

 tion Department with all materials for the 

 visual instruction in the scientific features 

 of the state for distribution among the 

 schools. Our school children should receive 

 their first inspiration in science not from 

 abroad but from the things about them. 

 There is every reason why the state mu- 

 seum should do for the resources of the 

 state what the Commercial Museum of 

 Philadelphia is doing for the people of 

 Pennsylvania. 



The execution of these ideals requires a 

 combination of scientific and administra- 

 tive ability with a strong sense of public 

 duty, which I dwelt upon in the opening 

 paragraphs of this address. Our great 

 commonwealth is to be congratulated on 

 having at the head of its educational sys- 

 tem a man of the breadth of view of Dr. 

 Andrew S. Draper, and at the head of this 

 institution a man of such thorough prepa- 

 ration, wide sympathies and executive 

 ability as its present director. In assuming 

 the centralized control both of the Geolog- 



