Report of the President. 1 7 



development during the past year, with the conviction that in time 

 the department will present as perfect a history of the life of man 

 as it is possible to secure. To bring this about, however, we must 

 not feel that because we have obtained so much, our efforts should 

 be diminished in the slightest degree. On the contrary, what has 

 been accomplished should be our incentive to still greater work, 

 that in the end there shall be no regret over lost opportunities. 

 Realizing our responsibilities in relation to future generations, we 

 can but acknowledge our present duty of securing the means for 

 unremitting labors by interesting as many persons as possible in 

 this great educational work, and thereby securing foundations and 

 special funds for its accomplishment. Many enlightened and lib- 

 eral patrons have helped in the past, and are helping now, while 

 some have been called from their labors. It is to be hoped that 

 these examples will be followed by others, until, with many patrons 

 providing the means for research and for gathering the treasures 

 to be displayed in the palatial structure to be extended by the 

 City, this Museum shall increase from year to year, and in every 

 way shall be the great centre — in the metropolis of America — for 

 the promulgation of knowledge to the people. 



To remain stationary in our work, and to limit our objects, 

 would be to lose all hope for the future of the department. The 

 life of man has many phases, and these must be traced in all parts 

 of the earth. To understand his appearance and his life on this 

 continent, we must have the means of comparative study of the 

 facts offered by other lands. It is therefore essential that while 

 still greater efforts should be made for research in America, in 

 order to obtain every possible fact relating to pre-Columbian 

 times and to our so-called native peoples, we are also bound to 

 make special exertions for the accumulation of data relating to 

 every other land. 



The new collections arriving during the year were catalogued, 

 poisoned, and put on exhibition or stored to await the completion 

 of the halls assigned to the department. 



A new system of keeping the records of the department has 

 been introduced, and the correspondence and information relat- 

 ing to each collection have been brought together and filed. The 

 system consists in giving each collection an accession number and 



