Apkil 15, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



611 



of the best ai't, and chiefly living modern 

 art, in the most beautiful manner. Better 

 to create art to-day than to be learned in 

 the art of the past. Thus could art be 

 pressed into the service of all. On behalf 

 of Dr. A. B. Meyer, Dr. WandoUek de- 

 scribed the efforts of the American mu- 

 seums in this direction, especially as re- 

 gards children. The similar efforts of the 

 school-museum at Hannover were detailed 

 by Dr. Wehrhahn, who said that the small 

 people found his simple rooms more at- 

 tractive than the large museum palaces. 

 An account of the Ruskin Museum in 

 Sheffield had been distributed to members, 

 and Mr. Gill Parker confined himself to 

 showing a large series of lantern slides 

 illustrating the activities of that institu- 

 tion. In the discussion on the above 

 papers, Dr. Leisching, of Vienna, said that 

 the Austrian government had established a 

 circulating museum department, which 

 sent art collections to towns that had no 

 permanent museum, and arranged for lec- 

 tures on these exhibitions by teachers at 

 the high schools. Scepticism as to the 

 value and possibility of the whole move- 

 ment was manifest in the discursive speech 

 of Dr. Lessing (Berlin), who maintained 

 that the public as a whole, from the man 

 in the street up to 'his Excellence'— and 

 higher still, had not and could not be given 

 a feeling for art, which term, however, 

 seemed in the speaker's mind to signify 

 chiefly ancient art and the old masters. 

 A museum guide to art should be modeled 

 on Huxley's 'Crayfish.' Dr. Pauli, of 

 Bremen, was astonished to hear such retro- 

 grade views. No museum supposed that it 

 could turn a road mender into a con- 

 noisseur on a Sunday morning, but it might 

 be proud to have inspired only one or two 

 per cent, of its visitors. The upper classes 

 felt themselves above instruction, but work- 

 ing people were far more susceptible, and 



it was from them that future creative 

 artists were to be expected. 



The program of the second day, dealing 

 as it did with limited questions of practical 

 importance, gave rise to a more lively dis- 

 cussion. Dr. Lichtwark voiced those com- 

 plaints about the architecture of museums 

 with which we are familiar, objecting, 

 among other things, to the corridor-like 

 arrangement of rooms en suite, to the waste 

 of space and money on a huge stair-hall, 

 and especially to the domination of a whole 

 museum by the architect's conception of 

 his facade. As a small museum in which 

 the architect and decorator had solved 

 their special problem in a satisfactory 

 manner, he instanced the Thorwaldsen Mu- 

 seum in Copenhagen. For appealing to 

 the people of a large city, a number of 

 small museums were better adapted than 

 one large central museum. Dr. Jessen, 

 emphasizing the point that museums 

 shoiild be built for the objects placed in 

 them, maintained that the buildings should 

 not be erected until a large amount of ma- 

 terial had been collected, since not till then 

 could one see precisely what was wanted. 

 Professor Grosse, director of the art mu- 

 seum at Freiburg i. B. pointed out very 

 clearly that one should not confuse the 

 scientific study of art with the faculty of 

 appreciating beautiful works of art, which 

 latter was the need of the lay public. The 

 collections for these two purposes should 

 be separated. He, therefore, advocated the 

 setting apart for the public of certain 

 rooms, in which carefully selected objects 

 should be displayed according to esthetic 

 principles, abundance of space being al- 

 lowed to each object, especially to the 

 smaller ones. Different classes of objects 

 should be intermingled, and the exhibits 

 should be changed at intervals. Dr. Grosse 

 was warmly applauded and his ideas were 

 supported by several subsequent speakers, 

 for instance. Dr. Schmid, of the Bavarian 



