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mal accessibility. A cabinet museum may 

 never "play" to a majority of children. 

 True majorities, in a TV-dominated and 

 anti-intellectual age, may need sound bites 

 and flashing lights — and I am not against 

 supplying such lures if they draw children 

 into even a transient concern with science. 

 But every classroom has one Sacks, one 

 Kom, or one Miller, usually a lonely child 

 with a passionate curiosity about nature 

 and a zeal that overcomes pressures for 

 conformity. Does not the one in fifty de- 

 serve an institution as well — a magic 

 place, like a cabinet museum, that can 

 spark the rare flames of genius? 



Elitism is repulsive when based upon 

 external and artificial Umitations like race, 

 gender, or social class. Repulsive and ut- 

 terly false — for that spark of genius is ran- 

 domly distributed across aU the cruel bar- 

 riers of our social prejudice. We therefore 

 must grant access — and encouragement — 

 to everyone; and we must be unceasingly 

 vigilant, and tirelessly attentive, in provid- 

 ing such opportunities to all children. We 

 will have no justice until this kind of 

 equaUty is attained. But if only a small mi- 

 nority respond, the true enthusiasts of all 

 races, classes, and genders, shall we deny 

 them the pinnacle of their soul's striving 

 because all their colleagues prefer passiv- 

 ity and flashing lights? Let them lift then- 

 eyes to hills of books and at least a few 

 museums that display the full magic of na- 



ture's variety. What is wrong with this 

 truly democratic form of eUtism? 



While in Dublin, I also visited Saint 

 Michan's church, with its beautifully 

 carved organ, which Handel played (al- 

 though some dispute die claun) at the pre- 

 miere of Messiah, first performed in 

 Dublin in 1742. Handel, who wrote four 

 great odes for the coronation of George 11; 

 the same JCing George who then granted a 

 royal charter that eventually led to the 

 Dublin Museum of Natural History. And I 

 thought of my favorite chorus (not "Hal- 

 lelujah!") in part two of Messiah, set by 

 Handel witii a richly polyphonic begin- 

 ning and a strong homophonic ending — a 

 lovely analogy, I thought, to the interplay 

 of nature's wondrously variegated diver- 

 sity with the unity of taxonomic order and 

 evolutionary explanation, flie themes so 

 well displayed and intertwined in the 

 Dublin museum. And I thought of the 

 words, expressing the most noble mission 

 of teachers: to expand out to the ends of 

 knowledge, and then to gather in — by 

 song, by writing, by instruction, by dis- 

 play. "Great was the company of the 

 preachers.. . . Their sound is gone out into 

 all lands, and their words unto the ends of 

 the world." 



Stephen Jay Gould teaches biology, geol- 

 ogy, and the history of science at Harvard 

 University. 



loiHas 



"Members of the Peaceful Village Armchair Travelers Club will 'take off' on their first 



trip fifteen minutes from now. Destination: The Lillian Coonty Room of the Rita 



Whittington Nursing Home. That's this room next door Program: Professor F. Slemp of 



Ord, Nebraska, is going to give a lecture on natural history, and if I find any cigarette 



butts in there, you will all stay home next time!" 



20 Natural History 1/94 



