SCIENCE 



NEW YORK, JULY 24, 1891. 



MUSEUMS AND THEIR PURPOSES.' 



I HAVE to thank the secretary and curator of this academy for 

 the opportunity to state publicly some thoughts which have been 

 uppermost frequently in my mind during several years past, but 

 vphich I have never had occasion to put into form. In the North- 

 west, educational methods and institutions are yet in then- forma- 

 tive stages. This is still more the case with scientific education 

 and scientific institutions. But we are fast laying foundations for 

 posterity to build upon, which we ought to plan with a far-reach- 

 ing vision into the future. Our mistakes, if we make them, will 

 be forever laid at our door ; and our children and our children's 

 children will condemn or approve of us and our labor in accord- 

 ance with the degree of fitness that they find between the foun- 

 dations that we lay and the superstructure which they may have 

 to build thereon. 



It is because I think I can see in the future of scientific work 

 in Minnesota some glimpses of the outlines of that superstructure, 

 that I wish to call your attention to some of the fundamental 

 essentials that ought to enter into the foundation which we are 

 called upon to lay. Minnesota is an empire, territorially of itself, 

 and it will become the " empire state" of the North-west, politi- 

 cally, educationally, and financially, and it ought to become the 

 leader in the North-west in scientific enterprise and organization. 

 In this organization of scientific work in the State, the museums 

 will play no inconspicuous part. It will be safe to say that at 

 those centres where the museums are located will be found in 

 greatest efficiency all the other scientific agencies, whether of 

 laboratories, libraries, or lectureships. There is a fitness in their 

 association, almost an invincible bond of attraction, which will 

 ultimately overthrow aU the accidental or artificial devices which, 

 in our possible short-sightedness, we may throw about them to 

 keep them asunder. 



A museum was originally a temple in which the muses were 

 worshipped or invoked. At Athens, a hill near the Acropolis was 

 called the Museum because of the existence on it of such a temple. 

 It was a place for study and high contemplation. Although we 

 have outgrown the mythology of the Greeks, their literature and 

 their institutions have so pervaded our language and institutions 

 that we find the germs of some of our choicest civil and social 

 growths sunk deep into that old civilization. Those germs have 

 fruited, in part, in our day, and the fruit is somewhat different 

 from what the germs seemed to foreshadow. The germ of the 

 museum at Athens, fraught then with prophecy of poetry, art, 

 and history, had but little promise of science. The muse of as- 

 tronomy was but one of the nine whose shrines were in those 

 temples. Scholars who sought the museum were inspired with 

 visions of the beautiful and the poetic, or of the light and passion- 

 ate frivolities of life. There was no muse of geology known, 

 though that science, by her aid, was to be a potent factor in pre- 

 serving and perpetuating the words " muse " and " museum " in 

 the new civilization ; nor any muse of biology, though the poetry 

 of biologic science has since been a prolific branch of modern scien- 

 tific literature. There was no muse of botany, nor of paleontol- 

 ogy, nor of electricity. I think that if the Grecian Museum had 

 continued to the present, the number of the inspiring muses would 

 have been increased far beyond the mythical nine. That dynasty 

 has passed away, and with it has almost been lost the original idea 

 of the museum. 



The word, however, which is imperishably stamped on the lan- 

 guage of all modern civilized nations, remains. It bears a weird, 



' A lecture delivered before the Academy of Sciences of St. Paul, Minn., by- 

 Professor N. H. Winchell, State geologist. 



and to the original nine who gave it origin and character and au- 

 thenticity, almost an unknown signification. Let us look into this 

 a moment, and endeavor to learn what is the modern meaning of 

 this word " museum." We shall find that it bears three inter- 

 pretations, or dominant ideas. First, there are museums designed 

 for entertainment; second, there are museums intended for the 

 instruction of the visitor; third, there are museums for research. 



The modern so-called " dime museum" typifies the museum 

 designed for entertainment, although in many such may be found 

 some of the characteristics of the second class. It is a place of 

 " curos'ties" and monstrosities, of cheap theatricals and legerde- 

 main. Such have long been known, although under different 

 names, in the principal cities of Europe and America, the most 

 noted in this country being Barnum's Museum in New York City 

 thirty-five or forty years ago. Here the visitor is wholly passive 

 under the manipulation of the presiding genius of the place. He 

 may enter the presence with any foreign, or even adverse senti- 

 ment. He simply is willing to be amused for half an hour. 



The modern museum designed for instruction has a somewhat 

 higher function and rank. Its purpose is to inspire in the visitor 

 a thirst for knowledge, and in a degree to furnish that knowledge, 

 at second band. He seeks not that amusement may be lavished 

 upon him, but he is at least willing to put forth an effort to obtain 

 information. With this end attained he is satisfied. The in- 

 struction he has received remains in his mind unclassified and 

 generally unassimilable. He knows more of the earth and of the 

 things upon it when he retires from the place than when he ap- 

 proached it. Of his mental capacities his memory only is neces- 

 sary thereafter to enable him to make useful that which he has 

 seen. He is instructed and benefitted in so far as be appreciates 

 and retains the ideas which the various objects have brought to 

 his mind. Such museums are common. They accompany nearly 

 all modem institutions of higher learning. They are patronized 

 in proportion to the number of instructive objects they have on 

 exhibition, or the variety and beauty of their specimens, or of the 

 cases in which they may be contained. They serve, like travelling 

 circuses, to attract the light-minded and the curious ; but their 

 service is higher than that of the circus, in the higher grade of 

 information which they impart, and in the greater benevolence of 

 the motive for which they are maintained. Such museums dis- 

 charge an important function in education, and particularly in 

 scientific education, and to this day they express the popular idea 

 of a perfect museum. They may sometimes partake of the ele- 

 ments that characterize the third class, or the museum for rz= 

 search, and, in so far as they do, their sphere is raised nearer the 

 true ideal. In general, however, they are far removed from the 

 true museum, and from the germinal idea which was planted in 

 the Grecian mind. You will note that the motive of the patron 

 in both these cases is one of self-improvement or gratification. He 

 has no object ulterior to that of being himself benefitted. There 

 is, moreover, in the museum itself, no other purpose expressed, 

 nor any possibility of any other purpose being accomplished by 

 the visitor. 



These appendages to the science departments of our colleges are 

 considered desirable and even necessary. In the curriculum, how- 

 ever, for making scholars, and for rendering students capable in 

 their turn of teaching other students, or in making well-informed, 

 self-reliant scientists, they serve but as subordinate agencies. 

 They do not answer to the ends of scientific instruction in that 

 degree that is demanded by the scientific advancement of our day, 

 nor in that degree with which the ways and means of classical 

 instruction at this day answer to the classical learning of our 

 day. The classical student, even when he begins the classics, 

 is brought into immediate and personal contact with the 

 thing which he studies. The problems presented to him. 



