IO NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



own dignity is impaired in failing yet to recognize the full competency 

 of these functions. No state has lived long or taken a high place 

 in the development of civilization which has put aside these things 

 as trivial. It stands to the credit of New York that she has done 

 well in comparison with her sister states, but she stands far behind 

 the older communities of the world in the deference she pays and 

 the sacrifice she makes at this altar of intellectual life. 



2 A troublesome misconception exists as to the title of the Museum, 

 which in no small measure can not fail to influence the provision 

 made for its maintenance. By statute the institution is the State 

 Museum (Education Law, section 53). By Regents rule which 

 has the effect of statute it is also the Science Department. The 

 former term may imply the visible side of it, but the latter was 

 expressly intended to specify the work of scientific investigation 

 and publication. In service to the people the latter function is 

 by far the more important, but nevertheless it is the former that is 

 the term in common use and by this very fact conveys too often the 

 idea that the institution is represented solely by a collection of 

 material objects. Notwithstanding this misuse which is attended 

 with danger to the Museum, it is not well to change the title. The 

 trouble here lies in a disorderly use of the word museum. A museum 

 is not a collection of material objects of special or exceptional 

 interest. In its correct application the word means (and was so 

 used when this Museum was established) a center of knowledge 

 exemplified by specific objects and a fountain of new knowledge 

 derived from investigation; and it is this comprehensive sense that 

 the word still conveys in connection with all the great museums of 

 the world. 



3 The State Museum has acquired an established reputation 

 among the people as the proper depository for objects of scientific 

 interest, so far as they pertain to this State; gradually it is being 

 recognized as a suitable resting place of objects of purely historical 

 interest relating to our civic history and our agricultural develop- 

 ment. Considerable accessions have lately been made of such objects 

 and these will form the nucleus of the larger museum to come. 



4 It is a first duty of the Museum to keep the citizens of the State 

 informed as to the actual and potential natural resources of the 

 Commonwealth. The mineral resources are immense; the people 

 have a right to exact official knowledge of them, of their chances of 

 further development and production. The agricultural interests 

 of the State are of primary moment, an original source of livelihood; 

 the people have a right to every safeguard which can be thrown 

 about the crop production ; to know their insect enemies and how to 



