REPORT OF Assistant DIRECTOR, 1 ." 



kings and knights, the furniture of palaces, the most artistic of metal 

 work, stone work, and wood work. The ethnological museums, on the 

 other band, admit only the implements and costumes <>f savage and 

 partially civilized races. Between the two there is a great chasm to 

 be filled. It is as important to preserve in museums the more humble 

 and simple objects which illustrate the domestic economy and customs 

 of the masses of the people of* civilized nations, as to search for similar 

 objects in distant lands, or to treasure up only the objects which, on 

 account of their cost, are seen and used only by the most wealthy and 

 luxurious classes in the civilized community. 



Collections of tin's character are, perhaps, as well entitled to be called 

 "anthropological collections" as those usually Included under this 

 oame, which are intentionally more limited in their scope. 



To supply the place of objects too large to be placed m a museum, too 

 evanescent to have been preserved, or which, on account of their rarity 

 or oeglect in preserving them at the time when they could have been 

 obtained, are necessarily lacking in the collections, it is essential that 

 museums should assume the administration of great quantities of mate- 

 rial such as is usually consigned to the library or to the picture-gallery. 

 Otherwise, deficiencies in groups of objects, which should illustrate by 

 their collective meaning a general idea, will much impair their value. 

 Pictures and diagrams should be freely used as temporary or permanent 

 substitutes for specimens which maybe lacking, and also to supple- 

 ment and explain the descriptive labels. In many sections it may be 

 impossible to exhibit anything but. pictures. It is needless to point out 

 the difference in the influence of a series of plates, like those, for in- 

 stance, in Audsley and Bowes "Keramic Art in Japan/' the publica- 

 tions of the Arundel Society, the antotypes of Braun, or the illustrations 

 of many ethnographic works, if displayed in a public museum, where 

 they are seen daily by thousands of visitors, or hidden except from the 

 initiated few in a library, where they are only practically accessible to 

 students with abundance of time and training in the use of boohs. 



.Much of the material usually shown in art galleries and art museums, 

 such as is ordinarily used to illustrate the history of art, or is preserved 

 on account of its artistic suggestions, may be displayed in a much more 

 instructive manner in a museum without in the least lessening its value 

 to the artist or designer. Portraits, pictures of buildings, of costumes, 

 of geological features in scenery, of ceremonies, and of social customs 

 may be arranged and administered as anthropological specimens. In 

 addition, much may be accomplished by having standard works, re- 

 biting to the special departments of the museum, placed in convenient 

 places in the exhibition halls, and, it necessary, fastened to desks in 

 such a manner that they could not be removed, while easily accessible 

 to any person who might wish to become Informed upon special topics 

 relating to objects being examined. 



