b NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



The measure of service which this Museum can render is the degree 

 in which it can inspire in the people of the State the appreciative 

 love of these works of Nature, and with that the ideals and spiritual 

 purpose which can be drawn from an understanding thereof. Politics 

 and expedients aside, there can be no denial that this is and must 

 be the first purpose of such an institution ; therein lies its paramount 

 service; and the large-minded legislator on his way from politics 

 to statesmanship has never failed to recognize the spiritual value 

 of it. 



It is well to distinguish between the educational and informative 

 worth of a scientific museum. There are more facts in the anatomy 

 and physiology of a house fly than the average trained mind cares 

 to, or can, assimilate; a single mind may become clogged with them 

 and yet only thus the working of the organism be understood, as 

 an engineer understands the working of his engine to its last bolt 

 and valve. To the selected mind this is knowledge and to others 

 it may be information; but to neither is it education unless made 

 to bear on the higher life of the individual; that is, unless lessons 

 are learned from it which will guide us in the better ordering of our 

 own life. Life is all one life; we shall do righteously only as we 

 direct our share of it by recognition of the laws which. can be easiest 

 read in the simpler forms of living nature. 



The educative functions, therefore, of the State Museum are to 

 the community of the first order of quality. Literature is the record 

 of the best of human thinking best expressed; history a human 

 guess at the facts and motives of human events; mathematics in 

 practice is the statistical and angular combination of material 

 units, in the abstract it is the rhythm and the poesy of the material 

 universe. With these may be placed in premier order, the under- 

 standing, or the effort to understand, the laws which govern the 

 living works of Nature, today and since the beginning; and the bear- 

 ing of these laws on our own life and destiny. To this end a large 

 part of the service of the Museum is given -both through its 

 researches, its exhibited collections and its publications. 



In another educational aspect, second in importance and merit, 

 but essential to every commonwealth, is the comprehension of the 

 sources and uses of the natural material wealth with which the 

 State is endowed. In New York these natural supplies are very 

 great and even though they lack in such high essentials as coal 

 and gold, silver, copper and platinum, yet the production is varied 

 and the total puts the State in the front rank of mineral producers. 

 The geological workers of the State Museum have been in no incon- 



