I02 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



As far as I am able to find out, the idea that the maintenance 

 of a museum was a portion of the public duty of the State, or of any 

 municipal body, had no where entered into the mind of man at the 

 beginning of the last century, nor indeed to any large degree at the 

 beginning of this century, for that matter. Even the great teaching 

 bodies — the universities (whose museums are now next to the na- 

 tional ones, the most important in the country) were slow in acquir- 

 ing collections. Of course it must be remembered that the subjects 

 considered most essential to the education they then professed to 

 give, were not those which needed illustrations from the objects 

 which could be brought together in a museum. 



It is also worthy of remark, that notwithstanding the multipli- 

 cation of public museums during the present century, and the greater 

 resources and advantages which many of them possess, which pri- 

 vate collectors can not command, the spirit of accummulation in in- 

 dividuals has happily not passed away, although naturally directed 

 into rather different channels than formerly. 



The general museums or collections of old time were now for 

 the most part left to governments and institutions, which afforded 

 greater guarantees of their permanence and public utility, while ad- 

 mirable service was done to science by those private persons with 

 leisure and means, who, devoting themselves to some special sub- 

 ject, amassed the materials by which its study could be procured in 

 detail, either by themselves or by those they knew were qualified to 

 do so. These collections, if they fulfilled their most appropriate 

 destiny, ultimately became incorporated by gift or purchase in one 

 or other of the public museums, and then served as permanent fac- 

 tors in the education of the nation, or, I might say, of the world. 



The great national State supported museums which now exist 

 in every civilized country had certain definite purposes in view, and 

 methods of management which it is quite unnecessary for me to dis- 

 cuss now, for I want to speak of local museums and not national 

 ones. 



No provincial or local institute could endeavor to enter into 

 competition with them, especially in the means they could, or ought 

 to supply, of advancing detailed knowledge by exhaustive collections 

 in every subject. To the extent of such an institution as the British 

 Museum, or those great museums on this continent, such as the 



