June 14, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



927 



a group of students who might profit by a 

 collection of this kind. Furthermore, the 

 collection, once installed in a large museum, 

 and intended to serve teaching interests 

 scattered all over the city, must necessarily 

 be more or less stationary— and the more 

 so, the more money is expended on excel- 

 lence of installation — and can not be adapt- 

 ed to the needs of different schools. For 

 this reason the system which is used in 

 many schools, of having separate school 

 museums which are intended to serve this 

 purpose, is infinitely preferable, and ren- 

 ders entirely unnecessary the attempt to 

 make a large institution serve primarily 

 the demands of school classes. 



To take again the example of the Amer- 

 ican Museum of Natural History, I believe 

 it is claimed by the administration of that 

 museum that the systematic arrangement 

 of collections assists the public schools, and 

 that the large appropriation which the 

 museum receives from the city is largely 

 justifiable for this reason. The appropria- 

 tion amounts, I believe, to nearly two hun- 

 dred thousand dollars annually, while the 

 buildings without grounds represent an ap- 

 proximate value of three million dollars. 

 If we imagine that only one third of this 

 annual appropriation were used for the 

 maintenance of school museums, and that 

 instead of the single large complex of 

 buildings, twenty small museum buildings 

 were established in various parts of the 

 city, these ends would be infinitely better 

 subserved, and the central museum— that 

 is, the American Museum of Natural His- 

 tory— Avould be relieved of a duty which it 

 tries to perform, but which, owing to the 

 very size of the institution and of the city, 

 it can not fulfil. Such small museums 

 would have the same relation to the main 

 museum, that the branches of the public 

 library have to the central library, which, 

 through this agency, has increased its edu- 

 cational usefulness many times, and has 



diverted a certain class of demands from 

 the central library into other channels 

 better able to meet them. 



It would be an excellent plan if that 

 museum and others similarly supported 

 were required to furnish school museums 

 with the necessary material and informa- 

 tion, leaving to the teachers of the schools 

 the free use of the specimens, for no print- 

 ed label can take the place of the freedom 

 of selection of specimens, picked out by 

 the teacher as occasion may arise in the 

 course of his instruction. 



For a great many years attempts have 

 been made in France and Switzerland, and 

 these have recently been repeated in Amer- 

 ica, to arrange small collections for public- 

 school use, and to send these about from 

 school to school. This attempt deserves 

 every encouragement, although here also 

 in our large New York schools there will 

 be ample opportunity for the use of speci- 

 mens to justify the establishment of small 

 permanent school collections, which will be 

 found much more economical than the con 

 stant transportation of museum material 

 from place to place, and which may be 

 purchased at fairly reasonable rates from 

 dealers in teaching-material. 



Even if such school museums were estab- 

 lished, it would still be justifiable, and per- 

 haps desirable, for the museum to maintain 

 a few halls intended for systematic instruc- 

 tion; but if museums are to serve only 

 educational purposes, then large museums 

 are not only unnecessary, but even unde- 

 sirable. 



The same objections that may be raised 

 against the wholesale elimination of large 

 collections from the exhibits, and the reten- 

 tion of striking exhibits only, should also 

 be raised against the schematization of 

 museum material. Nothing perhaps helps 

 more to convey the idea of completeness 

 and of the uselessness of further effort than 

 the presentation of a whole museum as a 



n 



