LEGAL STATUS AND SCOPE OF THE STATE MUSEUM 



The broad scope of the State Museiun 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 constitute 

 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 Museirm." 



This definition of scope is clear. It is the specific expression of 

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

 not alone a state museiun 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 edilcational concern which in the judg- 

 ment 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 museimi of history is so obvious 

 as to be constructively a co'mmand. 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. 



