January 3, 1908] 



SCIENCE 



35 



notably the American Museum and the Car- 

 negie Museum, provide lecture courses for 

 teachers and children, the initiative having 

 been taken by Professor Bickmore more than 

 twenty-five years ago. The Carnegie Mu- 

 seum, American and Milwaukee Museums also 

 issue loan collections, the commencement hav- 

 ing been made by the Milwaukee Museum. 



The chief accessions of the year in the line 

 of natural history were the "Ward collections 

 of sponges and corals, the first numbering 

 over 800 species, the latter over 200. They 

 provide for an unusually full exhibit in these 

 branches of zoology, as the specimens were 

 originally brought together with a view to 

 exhibition and not for study. Work was con- 

 tinued among the Indians of the southwest, 

 in order to round out the important collections 

 of that region, but especial attention was 

 directed to the Pomo tribe of California. The 

 approaching completion of the new wing of 

 this museum will finish the north front and 

 provide for future growth. 



Perhaps the most important deduction to 

 be drawn from a perusal of these reports is 

 that a great amount of attention is being paid 

 to the educational side of museum work and 

 large expenditures of thought and money are 

 made to render them not simply instructive, 

 but attractive to the public. And there are 

 many weighty reasons for believing this to be 

 the correct view of the duty of the museum. 

 These institutions are largely supported by 

 public funds and the public has a right to ex- 

 pect a due return for its investment. Dr. 

 Boas may be, undoubtedly is, wrong in some 

 of his views regarding the principles of mu- 

 seum administration, but he is entirely cor- 

 rect in his assumption that the majority of 

 visitors to a museum do not seek anything 

 beyond entertainment. If he errs at all, it is 

 in placing the proportion of such visitors too 

 low. Therefore, in the exhibition of speci- 

 mens, the aim should be not merely to furnish 

 information to the man who is looking for it, 

 though this should assuredly be done, but to 

 attract and interest the chance or indifferent 

 visitor and to arouse in him a desire for 

 further knowledge. 



The particular attention given to the collec- 



tion, study, and display of fossil vertebrates 

 is a direct outcome of the extensive deposits 

 of fossils in the western states. These af- 

 forded an opportunity that was embraced by 

 American men of science and the art of col- 

 lecting and mounting this class of material 

 has reached a higher point here than in any 

 other country, skeletons of gigantic dinosaurs 

 and tiny mammals being mounted as if 

 they were the skeletons of modern animals. 

 Thus the life of the past, once considered as a 

 mysterious branch of research, has been 

 brought within the grasp of the average mu- 

 seum visitor. 



The American Museum has in this line of 

 work literally carried the war into Africa and 

 despatched an expedition to the Fayum in 

 search of examples of the primitive elephants 

 and other interesting animals discovered by 

 Beadnell and Andrews. 



"We are accustomed to regard the number 

 of visitors to a museum as a measure of its 

 importance and public usefulness, but it may 

 more properly be looked upon as an indication 

 of its interest for the public and to some ex- 

 tent of the state of the weather. If it is of 

 interest to the public, there is small doubt but 

 what it will prove to be useful. 



The Milwaukee Museum is so arranged that 

 the attendance can not well be taken ; the Car- 

 negie Museum has been closed for the past 

 year; attendance at the others was as follows: 

 U. S. National Museum and Smithsonian 



Institution 360,547 



American Museum of Natural History . . 476,133 



Field Museum of Natural History 254,516 



Brooklyn Institute Museum, including 



Children's Museum 229,028 



A total of 1,320,22^ 



The visitors at the U. S. National Museum 

 are largely from out ci town, but the great 

 majority of those at other institutions are 

 residents, and it speaks well to those who know 

 how inconvenient of access is the Pield Mu- 

 seum that a quarter of a million of people 

 should have found their way to it. "When this 

 museum is transferred to the Lake front, the 

 attendance will be vastly increased just as the 

 number of visitors at the American Museum 

 nearly doubled the year after the establish- 



