24 REPORT ON NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1886. 



D.— REVIEW OP THE ADMINISTRATIVE WORK OF THE 



YEAR. 



It will be evident from what has already been said that marked 

 progress has been made in the arrangement and identification of the 

 material in the custody of the staff curators. At no time in the history 

 of the Museum has classification and installation received so much 

 attention. For the past five years the Museum staff has been overbur- 

 dened with the preparation of exhibits for Berlin, London, New Orleans, 

 Louisville, and Cincinnati, and although much valuable material, which 

 would otherwise have been lost to the Museum, has been obtained, it is 

 equally true that during those years the progress of the Museum work 

 proper has been necessarily made subservient, and has been seriously 

 impeded. 



The reports of the curators indicate that better progress has been 

 made in the development of the exhibition series in the past than in 

 any previous year. The systematic arrangement of many of the collec- 

 tions has been commenced, and although much yet remains to be done 

 in the installation and labelling of specimens, the general appearance of 

 the public halls is far more satisfactory than ever before. In the three 

 geological departments this advance is especially manifest; as well as 

 in that of comparative anatomy. 



The Museum may well be congratulated upon this progress, for there is 

 no reason to doubt that the systematic arrangement of all the collections 

 will, during the next fiscal year, make still greater headway. 



The advance of the work has given an opportunity for much experi- 

 ence in methods of installation and labelling, and the principles of ad- 

 ministration which have been tentatively laid down in previous reports 

 have been brought still further into experimental practice. It is still the 

 belief of our administrators that there are certain cardinal principles 

 which must be considered in the arrangement of collections in public 

 museums. Each object should illustrate an idea, and no two objects 

 should be shown, which illustrate the same idea in a similar manner. 

 Further than this, the idea to be illustrated should be explained on the 

 label in such a manner that any intelligent visitor, without previous 

 special knowledge of the subject, may be able to learn why the object 

 is shown and what lesson it is intended to teach. The objects, also, 

 should be so carefully classified that their relations to each other may 

 be recognized by the visitor, so that, taken together, they suggest cer- 

 tain general conclusions; and in arriving at them the visitor should be 

 aided by certain general or collective labels, which should be supple- 

 mented, where practicable, by guidebooks and manuals containing all 

 the information upon the labels, arranged systematically and illustrated 

 by engravings of the more important objects. 



The study series includes those specimens which are not placed upon 

 exhibition, but are retained in the laboratories or stored in the unit tables 



