REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR I915 



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 that law reads as follows : "All scientific specimens 

 and collections, 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 con- 

 stitute the State Museum. . . The State Museum shall include 

 the work of the State Geologist and Paleontologist, the State 

 Botanist and the State 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. 



