REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 10,1 7 



I 



LEGAL STATUS AND SCOPE OF THE STATE MUSEUM 



The broad scope of the State Museum was clearly and succinctly 

 defined in the Education Law (as amended in 1910) under article 3, 

 which relates to the objects and functions of the University. Section 

 54 of the law reads as follows: " All scientific specimens and collec- 

 tions, works of art, objects of historic interest and similar property 

 appropriate to a general museum, if owned by the State and not 

 placed in other custody by a specific law, shall constitute the State 

 Museum. . . . The State Museum shall include the work of 

 the State Geologist and Paleontologist, the State Botanist and the 

 vState Entomologist, who, with their assistants, shall be included in 

 the scientific staff of the State Museum." 



This definition of scope is broad and clear. It is the specific 

 expression of the intent of the people of the State to constitute and 

 maintain not alone a state museum of science, but a state museum 

 of art, a state museum of history and a state museum which may 

 depict any other field of civic and educational concern which in the 

 judgment of the Regents of the University, would be justified by 

 public interest. The spirit of the law where its sentences bear upon 

 the creation of a museum of art and a museum of history is so obvious 

 as to be constructively a command. The wish of the people and the 

 desire of the Board in regard to this expansion of the actual museum 

 nearer to the ideal of the museum expressed in the law have become 

 a matter of record. It is then to be understood that the existing 

 science museum of the State represents the development of only one 

 phase of what should be, and what within the implied intention of 

 the law is to be, the State Museum. 



