922 



SCIENCE 



[N. 8. Vol. XXV. No. 650 



should be developed, where every attrac- 

 tion that counteracts the influence of the 

 saloon and of the race-track is of great 

 social importance. If a museum is to serve 

 this end, it must, first of all, be enter- 

 taining, and try to instill by the kind of 

 entertainment offered some useful stimu- 

 lant. The people who seek rest and recrea- 

 tion resent an attempt at systematic in- 

 struction while they are looking for some 

 emotional excitement. They want to ad- 

 mire, to be impressed by something great 

 and wonderful ; and if the underlying idea 

 of the exhibit can be brought out with suf- 

 ficient clearness, some great truths may be 

 impressed upon them without requiring at 

 the moment any particular effort. The 

 visitor of this class does not go to the 

 museum to study the exhibits ease by case 

 and to follow a plan carefully laid out 

 by the curator, but he strolls through the 

 halls examining something that attracts 

 his attention here and there without much 

 plan or purpose. 



It is a fond delusion of many museum 

 officers that the attitude of the majority 

 of the public is a more serious one; but 

 a calm examination of the visitors passing 

 through museum halls shows very clearly 

 that the majority do not want anything 

 beyond entertainment. This can easily be 

 proved by following them through the 

 halls and listening to their remarks, by 

 the general tendency of visitors to go 

 through all the halls of the museums from 

 end to end in order ' to have seen ' the 

 museum. It may be seen in the Sunday 

 afternoon crowds in New York City when 

 parents pass the hours after dinner with 

 their children in pleasant surroundings, 

 trying to take in the curious sights. 



If this is true, then the very serious 

 question arises, what can be done for this 

 very large class of visitors? Obviously, a 

 systematic exhibit will not appeal to them, 

 and the best we can hope for is to bring 



home to them by single exhibits important 

 points of view. Most of our museums are 

 not built on a plan which promises success 

 in this direction. To impress a point of 

 view requires at least the possibility of 

 concentration; while our large halls, built 

 with a view to architectural impressive- 

 ness, do everything that is possible to dis- 

 tract the visitor, who, when just beginning 

 to take in one exhibit, already looks for- 

 ward to the next one, thus being pre- 

 vented from ever concentrating his atten- 

 tion on any particular subject. Effective- 

 ness must be based on the effort to concen- 

 trate attention, and on the unity of the 

 idea expressed in each exhibit. Those who 

 have seen the room in the Dresden Mu- 

 seum containing the Sistine Madonna will 

 know what I mean. In this room is noth- 

 ing to distract the attention of the visitor 

 from the single exhibit, and consequently 

 the room is a sanctuary. 



It seems essential that before deciding 

 upon the selection of subjects to be pre- 

 sented to the public, the museiun director 

 should be clear as to the objects to be 

 obtained by popular exhibits. Populari- 

 zation of science has become of late years- 

 a kind of Shibboleth, and we are only too 

 apt to believe that an effort to present in 

 a simple way results of scientific inquiry 

 is in itself a praiseworthy endeavor. 



I fear that in this belief some of the 

 fundamental objects of the popularization 

 of science are overlooked. In the mass of 

 lectures intended to popularize knowledge, 

 in popular books, and not less in popular 

 museums, intelligibility is too often ob- 

 tained by slurring over unknown and ob- 

 scure points which tend to make the public 

 believe that without any effort, by listen-^ 

 ing for a brief hour or less to the exposi- 

 tion of a problem, they have mastered it. 

 This I consider one of the serious dangers- 

 of popular presentation of science. It is 

 a stimulus to the overestimation of one 's 



