14 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1884. 



G. SYSTEMS OF CLASSIFICATION. 



The chief requisite to success in the development of any museum is 

 a thoroughly available plan of organization and a philosophical system 

 of classification. 



The arrangement of the natural-history collections — zoological, botan- 

 ical, and geological — which will doubtless always constitute a very 

 large proportion of the treasures of the National Museum, and which 

 will undoubtedly in the future, as at the present, occupy the atten- 

 tion of at least three-fourths, if not more, of the Museum staff, is a 

 simple matter, since naturalists are pretty generally in accord as to the 

 affinities of different groups to one another, and since the grouping of 

 the objects in the Museum cases may be made to accord very closely 

 with the schemes laid down by systernatists. When, however, it is 

 necessary to take up the arrangement of collections which illustrate the 

 history of human culture, the lack of a convenient and instructive sys- 

 tem becomes very apparent. 



Much thought has been devoted to these subjects by the officers of 

 the Museum, especially during the past four years. Many of the prin- 

 cipal museums of Europe have been studied, their catalogues and pub- 

 lications minutely compared, and correspondence carried on with their 

 officers. It is hoped that the plans which have been developed as the 

 result of these labors may include the best features of similar plans 

 hitherto proposed, but it is undoubtedly true that no plans can be laid 

 down, except in a tentative way, since the experience of each year re- 

 veals possibilities and impossibilities not previously thought of by the 

 student of museum methods. 



In rny hrst report, published in 1881, I printed a scheme of classifi- 

 cation for the anthropological collections which, in certain quarters, did 

 not meet with favor. It was a purely tentative effort, published for the 

 purpose of inviting criticism, and not in any way supported by official 

 sanction. Some of the criticisms which it called forth were evidently 

 just and will have due weight in planning for future work. The scheme 

 referred to has been objected to by museum administrators because 

 it breaks up their favorite and time-honored method of geograph- 

 ical arrangement. It is the result of the experience of the officers of 

 this Museum that it is absolutely impossible to handle our immense 

 collections if we adhere to the methods of older and smaller establish- 

 ments. It is well known that some ethnological collections should be 

 arranged geographically, some teleologically, some with reference to 

 materials of which the objects are made. 



In this Museum in different departments of the work we shall doubt- 

 less find it convenient to employ all these systems. 



Our collections are at present being arranged in accordance with a 

 teleological rather than geographical plan of classification, objects <>(* a 

 similar nature being placed side by side, musical instruments together, 



