REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 1920-21 9 



siderable measure responsible for pointing out and encouraging a 

 mineral production which amounts to nearly fifty millions annually 

 in raw materials. They endeavor also to enlighten the people as 

 to the never-ending evil practices carried on within the boundaries 

 of the State in the promulgation of hopeless, often deliberately 

 dishonest mining propositions; alleged exploitations of invisible 

 and intangible supplies of the precious metals; the selling of certi- 

 ficates in joint stock mining companies; dealing in mysteries set 

 forth in a garniture of modern technical patter — in all of which the 

 citizens of this and other states are mulcted in heavy amounts; 

 matters in which we are without mandatory power, but in which 

 very things the people of the State need guardianship as well as 

 scientific advice. It has been the policy of the State hitherto to 

 let a citizen play the fool with his money if he will. Perhaps it is the 

 most effective cure. Experientia docet. 



We seek, furthermore, a true history of the original owners of our 

 domain, the red man and his progenitors. For this we depend on 

 no schedule of official documents, no contemporary letters, no 

 diaries or other evidence of events as they seemed to the lookers-on; 

 but rather by every means within our control to interpret the 

 assembled relics of the workmanship of these people, from which a 

 comprehending mind may draw the picture of their civilization from 

 the material objects necessary to its development. 



1 The State Museum has not yet succeeded in reaching the 

 objective laid out for it by the statute expressing the purpose of the 

 citizens. Here lies a duty unfulfilled; one which it would seem must 

 wait upon a better comprehension of the influence of the Museum on 

 the cultural interests of the people and the exaltation of such functions 

 to at least an equivalent plane to those of commerce and industry. 

 The statute of the State has called for a Museum laid out on 

 broadest lines, wherein may be brought together not alone a panorama 

 of her natural resources but in addition thereto, a visible record 

 of the history of the civic State, of the gradual development of 

 its agricultural procedures, of its arts and industries and of its art.- 

 Of these, Science, the creation and display of orderly knowledge, 

 is now alone the recipient of the State's patronage. What has been 

 done for the natural resources of the State remains yet to be done 

 for history, industry, agriculture and art. The State Museum 

 indulges in no fads, it experiments with no popular or passing fancies 

 in science. It seeks to invest the slender provision made for its 

 service in ways that serve best and without waste, and that experi- 

 ence has certified. Doubtless in so imperial a State as this, its 



