August 13, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



201 



While an enormous quantity of material was 

 collected in these museums it Tvas only gradually 

 that its real value began to be appreciated, and 

 that it was turned to proper account. The early 

 museums often had certain definite aims, and were 

 intended to be exponents of science; but natural 

 history was hampered by traditional opinions, and 

 physical science was over-weighted by metaphysics. 

 Everything was explained, but the explanations 

 had always to be in accord with accepted doctrines 

 of logic and metaphysics, which had themselves in 

 turn to square with theology. The wonders of na- 

 ture had an extraordinary fascination for men of 

 science, who were constantly on the lookout for 

 them. Any variation of the ordinary type of the 

 common object was eagerly sought after, and the 

 more extraordinary it was the greater was its at- 

 traction. Hence museums had a tendency to rep- 

 resent the abnormal rather than the normal, what 

 was rare rather than what was common. A mu- 

 seum was a collection of curiosities, and although 

 the word ' ' curiosity ' ' in its older sense had a 

 broader meaning than at present, there was gen- 

 erally implied in it the idea of strangeness or 

 rarity. The object to which it was applied was to 

 be regarded as worthy of being looked at because 

 it was odd or rare. 



Among early museums which have sur- 

 vived until our own day the history of the 

 Ashmolean Museum established at Oxford 

 in 1682 may be considered typical. This 

 had its origin in material gathered by John 

 Tradescant and his son earlier in the cen- 

 tury. Their collections were extensive and 

 included materials illustrating not only 

 natural history but industrial art and 

 coins. Their collecting seems to have been 

 of an indiscriminate character and without 

 definite classification. These collections 

 were acquired by Elias Ashmole in 1659 

 and passed by gift to the University of Ox- 

 ford in 1682. We are told : 



On the fifteenth day of May, 1679, the first stone 

 of that stately fabric, afterward called Ashmole 's 

 Museum, was laid on the west side of the theater, 

 and being finished by the beginning of March, 

 1682, there was put therein, on the twentieth day 

 of the same month, about 12 cart loads of rarities 

 sent to Oxon by Mr. Ashmole; which, being fixed 

 in their proper places by Eob. Plot, LL.D., who 



before had been intrusted with the custody of the 

 said museum, were first of all publicly viewed on 

 the twenty-first of May following by his royal high- 

 ness James, Duke of York, his royal consort 

 Josepha Maria, Princess Anne and their attend- 

 ants, and on the twenty-fourth of the same month 

 by the doctors and masters of the university. 



Thus rapidity of installation and diffi- 

 cultj^ of access seem to have characterized 

 this museum. While the museum was evi- 

 dently invested with a certain amount of 

 importance, it could hardly have been 

 highly appreciated at the time. Edward 

 Young called it " Ashmole 's baby house," 

 and the curator, though a man of much 

 learning, received no salary. 



Some have urged that because they were 

 derived from single collections, the early 

 museums were, as a rule, confined to spe- 

 cial lines, and that museums of broader 

 scope were a product of later development. 

 But so far as I can judge from accounts, 

 the early museums were usually miscel- 

 laneous in their character, and develop- 

 ment along narrower lines has been a mod- 

 ern practise. Such certainly was the 

 history of the British Museum. This origi- 

 nated largely from two collections, one that 

 of Robert Hubert, who had a collection 

 "of many natural rarities" which he had 

 gathered, according to the account, "with 

 great industry, cost, and thirty years' 

 travel in foreign countries." The other, 

 and the collection upon which the British 

 Museum was chiefly based, was that of Sir 

 Hans Sloane (1660-1752/3), a celebrated 

 physician, president of the College of 

 Physicians and of the Royal Society of 

 England. He early commenced to form a 

 museum, and continned to add to it with- 

 out intermission until the close of his long 

 life. In 1687 he made a voyage to Jamaica, 

 and is said to have been the first man of 

 learning whom the love of science alone led 

 to that, then distant, part of the globe. He 

 brought home with him not fewer than 800 



