A PLEA FOR NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS. 647 



sent, at considerable expense of time and money, to distant museums for inves- 

 tigation. Because of this necessity many facts of vast financial importance are 

 never gained. Men will not take the trouble to send to a distance for knowledge 

 whose value is not adequately confprehended on account of its very distance. 

 Dr. Dana, of St. Paul, says : '* It is utterly chimerical to think that Western men 

 can look to Eastern institutions for higher education. The latter is the vital 

 function of every commonwealth, and can no more be transferred than its political 

 responsibilities. For the West to rely upon the East for liberal education, would 

 put her, according to Dr. Post, ' in the attitude of France in relation to Paris ;- 

 of vast and inert provinces feebly feeling the pulse of the distant and intellectual 

 capital.' " So far as possible, each State should have so complete a museum that 

 no student of nature would be compelled, for anything but the most exhaustive- 

 study of unique specimens, to seek facilities for study in a distant college or 

 museum, but could find at home collections which would attract students of 

 science, practical scientists, and unscientific men needing scientific information, 

 from every quarter. A collection of specimens from Kansas was recently taken 

 to Agassiz's museum, in Cambridge, Mass., to be identified and classified, for 

 want of facilities at home. To the same place also were shipped, for a similar 

 purpose, materials by the ton from the Kentucky Geological Survey. Material of 

 like character and amount is stored within the limits of Missouri, with httle 

 knowledge of its value, from lack of' facilities for determining it here. ' Other 

 material from this State is now in the Archaeological Department of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, by request of authorities there, because of the peculiar rich- 

 ness and value of the objects which this State affords. And this is by no means 

 the first time that scientific material from Missouri has been solicited for study in 

 Washington, Boston, and other favored cities of the East. Yet, unfortunately, 

 vast supplies of all such material throughout the State are allowed to "lie here 

 ungathered and waste upon the plains." Much of this material is new to science, 

 and is rich in suggestive questions that have never been answered, but which 

 might and should be solved by her own citizens and upon her own soil. 



Again, museums are of vast importance in giving us increased knowledge of 

 God and his works, as does the Bible. Nature, not less than scripture, is a revel- 

 ation from God. Each was designed to supplement and complement the other. 

 Neither can be understood in all its fullness without illuraijaation from the 

 other.* Mr. Agassiz has said: "Collections of natural history present the 

 plan and mind of God in creation." "If I mistake not, the great object of 

 our museums should be to exhibit the whole animal kingdom as a manifes- 

 tation of the Supreme Intellect. The time is past when men expressed their 

 deepest convictions by wonderful and beautiful religious edifices ; but it is my 

 hope to j'^^, with the progress of intellectual culture, a structure arise among us 

 which may be a temple of the revelations written in the material universe. 

 If this be so, our buildings for such an object can never be too comprehen- 



* For illustrations of their mutual helpfulness, see "The Bible and Science," this Review, October, 1880. 



