112 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



materials regarded as of more purely scientific character were con- 

 sidered as the proper field of the institution and its activities in 

 acquisition were restricted to that scope. The sphere of its func- 

 tions is now broadened by the University law above cited. 



The State has shown an appreciative spirit and most laudable 

 activity in the acquisition or protection of places with historic asso- 

 ciations. With or without volunteer private cooperation, it has 

 taken over historic property, marked with commemorative monu- 

 ments sites of momentous and critical events in its history, raised 

 imposing memorials on its battlefields and statutes to some of its 

 distinguished sons. The spirit which has inspired these results has 

 been born and nursed into expression by a multitude of patriotic 

 societies, some of general, others of more local scope. But further 

 than this in the conservation of its historical materials the State 

 has not gone. It has left wholly to local civic associations the 

 conservation of the relics of its history. There is scarcely an intel- 

 ligent community in the State which has not an historical society 

 engaged not merely in retelling the often half remembered story 

 of local events but conserving the materials associated with the early 

 stages of its progress and the personal careers of its distinguished 

 citizens. 



It would be impossible to estimate the value of the collections of 

 these societies to the student of New York history and the edifica- 

 tion, satisfaction and pride with which these are contemplated by 

 the citizens of this State. But these results have been achieved 

 alone by private organizations moved by the same proper spirit 

 which may justly require of the State that it conserve the monu- 

 ments of its own cultures. 



If there is ever to be a State Historical Museum certainly it is 

 time to inaugurate it and if the effort is made it should be made 

 persistently, with a clearly defined purpose in view. Time is pass- 

 ing. New York has behind it 300 years of successive cultures and 

 back of that the cultures of the aborigines. It is no longer easy 

 to acquire the relics of these cultures. In another generation they 

 will all have passed into the possession of public or private museums. 



It is with the relics of the different settlements rather than with 

 its critical events that an historical museum should concern itself. 

 Such collections of historical objects should depict in the truest 

 and most realistic fashion the modes and means of living in each 

 successive phase of culture, should reproduce by proper association 

 a faithful picture of domestic life and habitudes. The educational 



