Io6 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



There should be no crowding of specimens one behind the other, 

 every one must be perfectly and distinctly seen, and with a clear 

 space around it. Could we imagine a picture gallery with half the 

 walls partially or entirely concealed by others hung in front of them ? 

 Though this may appear to you preposterous, yet this seemed to be 

 still the approved arrangement of specimens in most public mu- 

 seums. If an object is worth putting in a museum it was surely 

 worth such a position as would enable it to be seen. Every speci- 

 men exhibited should be good of its kind, and all available skill and 

 care should be spent upon its preservation, and rendering it capable 

 of teaching the lesson it was intended to convey. Every specimen 

 should have its definite purpose, and no absolute duplicate should 

 on any account be admitted. Above all. the purpose for which each 

 specimen is exhibited, and the main lesson to be derived from it 

 should be distinctly indicated by the labels affixed both as headings 

 of the various divisions of the series, and to the individual speci- 

 mens. Mr. Brown Goode, the director of the U. S. National Mu- 

 seum, puts the point better than I can when he says, " An efficient 

 educational museum may be described as a collection of instructive 

 labels, each illustrated by a well selected specimen." 



I have already said that the museum required watchful and in- 

 cessant care, not only must the specimens contained in it, all more 

 or less perishable in their nature (as we have experienced by having 

 to throw away a large part of one of our entomological collections) 

 be continually looked to, and cleaned and renewed when necessary, 

 but fresh ones must be added to make the different series complete, 

 and they must often be re-arranged to keep pace with the continu- 

 ous advance of scientific knowledge. 



An educational museum could not stand still or it ceased to be 

 of any value. It would have to keep abreast of the rapidly flowing 

 stream of knowledge. Now that could not be done without con- 

 tinual expenditure. If we are to have a museum which will fulfil its 

 highest purpose we must face that question. 



Our museum, even in its present form, exists because of the 

 voluntary care bestowed upon it by the gentlemen I have already 

 named, whose unremitting watchfulness have alone made it presenta- 

 ble and of interest to the general public altogether apart or largely 

 so from any educational feature. But if founded on the lines which 



