932 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 650 



of science, has evidently been felt by the 

 administration of the United States 

 National Museum, in which, in the Bio- 

 logical Department, the work on the ex- 

 hibit halls has been divorced completely 

 from the scientific work on the collections. 



The question then arises, What shall we 

 do with our collections to make them useful 

 to the public and at the same time useful 

 for the advancement of science? Two 

 methods are possible for reaching this end. 

 Either we may have a complete separation 

 of the collections intended for the public 

 and of those intended for the scientist, or 

 we may decide to make the entire collection 

 equally accessible to the public and to the 

 scientist. 



Reasons may be brought forward in 

 favor of either method, and it is largely a 

 question of economy what method shall be 

 pursued. The method adopted will also 

 determine the form of the museum build- 

 ing. Unfortunately this point of view is 

 seldom considered in planning museum edi- 

 fices. Taking the example of the Ameri- 

 can Museum of Natural History, we find 

 the whole museum, with the exception of 

 the cellar and the top floor, which is a half- 

 attic, laid out in large magnificent halls, 

 which, of course, means that the whole 

 museum is to be accessible to the public. 

 Consequently there is no choice but to sub- 

 serve in the exhibits both the aims of the 

 scientist and those of the general public. 

 The proportional amount of space avail- 

 able for storage in a building of this kind 

 Is so small that full use of the stored ma- 

 terial for scientific purposes is entirely out 

 of the question. The opposite point of 

 view has been followed in the Zoological' 

 Museum in Berlin, one of the very few 

 buildings in which the deliberate attempt 

 has been made' to separate exhibit col- 

 lections from study collections. Here, 

 however, the space allotted to the study 



collections is more than twice as large as 

 the space allotted to exhibit collections. 



If a museum is planned like the Ameri- 

 can Museum of Natural History, the only 

 thing to do is to acknowledge freely that 

 the public is to be admitted to all the col- 

 lections in the museum ; to arrange the col- 

 lections from scientific points of view, and 

 to set off from these collections in con- 

 spicuous places those exhibits which are 

 intended for the public. The central aisles 

 of the large halls, for instance, lend them- 

 selves admirably for exhibits of this type, 

 while the side alcoves may be used to 

 furnish the indifferent background from 

 which the popular exhibits should be set 

 off. 



I am not by any means convinced that 

 this is the best solution of a difficult prob- 

 lem. The attempt to make accessible in 

 this way the entire collections is unneces- 

 sarily expensive; and the work that must 

 go on in the collections, if the museum is 

 to be a live institution at all, will tend to 

 distract from the dignity of the halls, 

 which I consider, so far as the public is 

 concerned, as one of the essential features 

 of the museum. It seems to me that while 

 the public is admitted to a museum hall, 

 everything in the hall should be calculated 

 to increase the impression of dignity and 

 of aloofness from every-day life. No 

 dusting, no mopping, no trundling-about 

 of boxes, should be permitted in a hall 

 visited by the public, because it disturbs 

 that state of mind that seems best adapted 

 to bring home the ideas for which the 

 museum stands. 



It has been proposed to overcome the 

 economic difficulty involved in the necessity 

 of having large collections accessible, and 

 the expensiveness of exhibit halls intended 

 for the public, by placing the study collec- 

 tions outside of the large cities, in suburbs, 

 where land is inexpensive, and where un- 

 pretentious buildings can be erected. This 



