August 23, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



205 



D. Museum Officers. 



1. A museum without intelligent, pro- 

 gressive and well-trained curators is as in- 

 effective as a school without teachers, a li- 

 brary without librarians, or a learned society 

 without a woi'king membership of learned 

 men. 



2. Museum administration has become 

 one of the learned professions, and success 

 in this field can only be attained as the re- 

 sult of years of stud}"^ and experience in a 

 well-organized museum. Intelligence, a 

 liberal education, administrative ability, 

 enthusiasm, and that special endowment 

 which may be called ' the museum sense ' 

 are prerequisite qualifications. 



■ Each member of the museum staff should 

 become an authority in some special field 

 of research, and should have time for in- 

 vestigation and opportunity to publish its 

 results. 



3. A museum which employs untrained 

 curators must expect to pay the cost of 

 their education in delays, experimental 

 failures and waste of materials. 



4. No investment is more profitable to a 

 museum than that in its salai-y fund, for 

 only when this is liberal maj^ the services 

 of a permanent staff of men of established 

 reputation be secured. 



Around the nucleus of such a staff will 

 naturally grow up a corps of volunteer as- 

 sistants, whose work properly assisted and 

 directed will be. of infinite value. 



5. Collaborators, as well as curators, may 

 be placed upon the staff of a large museum, 

 the sole duty of the former being to carry 

 on investigations, to publish, and, if need 

 be, to lecture. 



6. Volunteers may be advantageously 

 employed either as curators and custodians, 

 or collaborators. Such cooperation is es- 

 pecially desirable and practicable when a 

 museum is situated in the same town with 

 a college or university, or in a national 

 capital where there are scientific bureaus 



connected with the government. Professors 

 in a university or scientific experts in the 

 government service often find it a great 

 benefit to have fi-ee access to the facilities 

 afforded by a museum, and are usually able 

 to render useful service in return. Younger 

 men in the same establishments may be 

 employed as volunteer aids, either in the 

 museum or in the field. 



7. N"o man is fitted to be a museum ofiicer 

 who is disposed to repel students or in- 

 quirers, or to place obstacles in the way of 

 access to the material under his charge. 



8. A mu^seum officer or emploj^ee should, 

 for obvious reasons, never be the possessor 

 of a private collection. 



9. The museum which carries on explo- 

 rations in the field as a part of its regular 

 work has great advantage over other insti- 

 tutions in holding men of ability upon its 

 staff and in securing the most satisfactory 

 results from their activities. No work is 

 more exhaustive to body and mind than the 

 care of collections, and nowhere are enthu- 

 siasm and abundant vitality more essential. 

 Every museum must constantly obtain new 

 material through exploration, and it is better 

 that this exploration should be done by the 

 men who are to study the collections and 

 arrange them in the museum than that this 

 work should be placed in the hands of 

 others. 



10. In a large museum staff it is almost 

 essential that certain persons should give 

 their attention chiefly to administrative 

 and financial matters, thus leaving their as- 

 sociates free from occupation of this descrip- 

 tion. The business affairs of a museum 

 cannot be conducted with too great prompt- 

 ness and precision. It is desirable, how- 

 ever, that the administrative oflScers of a 

 museum should be men who comprehend 

 the meaning of museum work and are in 

 sympathj^ with its highest aims, and that 

 its business affairs and scientific work should 

 be controlled by the same executive head. 



