June 14, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



933 



proposition has been made in England, and 

 has been carried out by the Ethnographical 

 Museum in Berlin. Although the separa- 

 tion of the exhibit collections and the 

 storage collections involves considerable ad- 

 ministrative difficulties, and is open to sci- 

 entific objections, it is not impossible that 

 we shall necessarily be led to the adoption 

 of this principle of administration. While, 

 however, the collections are concentrated in 

 one large building, we must accept the 

 principle that the collections must receive 

 proper care, and must be available for sci- 

 entific study. In our museum buildings 

 with which we have to get along at the 

 present time, this end might very well be 

 attained by placing either in one wing or 

 on one floor the exhibits intended for the 

 general public, and also those intended for 

 students in high schools, special training 

 schools, colleges, and even for many stu- 

 dents of universities. In collections of this 

 kind the more advanced collections intend- 

 ed for students would give what I called 

 before the indifferent background which is 

 so necessary for the general public. A 

 large number of halls, however, will have 

 to be installed in a more condensed manner, 

 perhaps by adding galleries to haUs of un- 

 necessary height, in which material could 

 be made accessible to students. There is 

 no reason why the public should not be ad- 

 mitted to halls of this kind, although pre- 

 sumably very few of the visitors would 

 carry away any other impression than that 

 of the magnitude of the field of work cov- 

 ered by the museum. A thorough reorgan- 

 ization of museum administration will not 

 be possible until the plan of operation of 

 the museum is decided upon before the 

 museum building is erected, and until 

 the small systematic educational museum, 

 which serves as an adjunct to elementary 

 instruction, is separated entirely from the 

 large museum. Like the university, the 

 large museum must stand first and last, in 



its relation to the public as well as in its 

 relation to the scientist, for the highest 

 ideals of science. 



Fkanz Boas 



SCIENTIFIC BOOKS 

 THE COLLECTED WORKS OF GEORGE WILLIAM HILL 



The Carnegie Institution of Washington 

 has already undertaken many forms of scien- 

 tific activity during the short period of its 

 existence. These may be divided into two 

 classes. First, the cases where it assists sci- 

 ence indirectly by a grant to an individual for 

 the prosecution of some piece of work which 

 might or might not be done without this aid; 

 and second, the cases where some particular 

 branch of knowledge is to be advanced or as- 

 sisted by expenditure on lines which will not 

 benefit any individual in particular, either in 

 money or in reputation. There is consider- 

 able doubt whether an ultimate gain is to ac- 

 crue to the scientific world from the former 

 method: the danger of pauperizing research 

 is a matter which can not be regarded lightly, 

 for the most notable contributions have more 

 frequently been made by those who have dona 

 their work in spite of difficulties and who, 

 under an easier regime, would not have felt 

 the need for exertion. Little criticism can be 

 made on the second class of cases, where 

 organization and a large equipment is fre- 

 quently required. The routine work involved 

 in making or collecting or publishing huge 

 masses of data is often neither possible for an 

 individual nor stimulating to any one who is 

 obliged to undertake it for some definite ob- 

 ject which he may have in view. 



To the second class belongs some of the 

 work that may be done by a publishing house 

 whose sole concern is not the maximum finan- 

 cial gain to be extracted from its operations. 

 Of this there already exist excellent English 

 examples in the Pitt Press at Cambridge and 

 the Clarendon Press at Oxford. It is true 

 that these businesses are run on a commercial 

 basis in so far as they publish books which ap- 

 peal to a large circle, but they also issue works 

 on which a considerable financial loss is ex- 

 pected, so that the net annual profit is not 



