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MÉXICO. 



Ke vista Científica y Bibliográfica. 



Mms. 1-2. 



1896-97. 



The Museum of the Future. 



Professor Herrera's pamphlef",, reprinted from the Memorias 

 de la Sociedad "AUate" de México, vol. ix., pp. 221-252, is enti- 

 tled ''Les Musées de PAvenir." 0£ these museums we are told 

 "there is no gallery of ii.isects, no gallery oE birds, or o£ mam- 

 mals, or of fishes, or of reptiles; no coUeotion of Coleóptera, no 

 colleetion of Chiroptera,' or of pheasants, or of pigeons. Mu- 

 seums of the future do not classify by classes, families, tribes> 

 genera, speeies, sub-species, varieties, sub-varieties, races, 



and sub-races; they put in arder facts, and classify ideas 



There are rooms for heredity, for ontogénesis; CEenogenesis, va- 



riation, mímicry, the struggle for Ufe nutrition, and so on 



These rooms are arranged in a philosophical order, and in that 

 order they must be.visited by the public; to this end there will 

 be barriers suitably disposed In the museums of the fu- 

 ture the zoo'ogieal specimen is the laequey of an idea, whe- 

 reas in our present museums ideas are the slaves of specimens. 

 Thus, a specimen is not exibited because it is rare, or because 

 it ought to be exhibited: we show the most profound contempt 

 for specimens that are rare, curious, or pretty ... . The mu- 

 seums of the future aims at being, not a magaziue of dead lum- 



