3 8 Address — George C. Clausen. 



Henry Parish, was created by the Legislature a body corporate to be known 

 as the American Museum of Natural History, and to be located in the City of 

 New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a museum and 

 library, to encourage and develop the study of natural science, to advance the 

 general knowledge of kindred subjects and to furnish popular instruction in 

 them. 



At this time the exhibits of the Museum were tolerated in a few cramped 

 and unsightly rooms of the old Arsenal on the Fifth Avenue side of the Park. 

 To-day many of the exhibits of the institution are known to men of scientific 

 research in every civilized country, and it is nowhere disputed that the Museum 

 buildings themselves are admirably fitted for the display of the priceless treasures 

 which they contain. These results have been brought about by a singularly 

 original combination of partnership, which, under sanction of the law, has been 

 entered into by the citizens of New York in their corporate capacity and the 

 President and Trustees of the Museum. Under this exceedingly felicitous 

 arrangement, it is mutually agreed that the City shall pay for the erection of the 

 buildings and for their maintenance, while the Trustees have taken upon 

 themselves the responsibility of providing the exhibits, the library, the lectures 

 and other means of instruction and mental recreation. This arrangement is 

 perpetual, irrevocably binding upon both parties. It is expressly stipulated 

 that the contract shall continue for all time. By it Manhattan Square is given 

 over to the uses of the Museum. It is provided that suitable buildings shall be 

 erected thereon at the cost of the City ; that they shall be properly maintained 

 and policed by the City ; that the exhibits shall be supplied by the Association ; 

 and that the Museum, in its entirety, shall be under the sole control and 

 management of the Trustees for the free use and benefit of all the people. Both 

 parties to this agreement have faithfully lived up to the compact, which happily 

 both have regarded as sacred. The Trustees, on the one hand, headed by 

 their wise and far-seeing, high-minded and open-handed President, Morris K. 

 Jesup, have made the people of the Western Metropolis in very truth "the 

 heirs of all the ages " by spreading before them in most attractive form evidences 

 of the development and progress of the earth and of man from the earliest time 

 until the present day. The City, on its part, has kept faith by providing with 

 lavish hand the money with which to erect and maintain these magnificent 

 halls. 



The first building cost $700,000. Under the laws of 1877 an addition was 

 provided for at a cost of % 800, 000. Later on the east wing was completed at a 

 cost of $550,000, while under the laws of 1895 and 1896 two other additions 

 were made, the one costing $510,000 and the other $500,000. In 1897 an 

 additional half million was provided for the completion and equipment of these 

 wings. The cost of all the buildings and their equipment, from first to last, 

 has been in round numbers $3,500,000, while the sum expended for maintenance 

 up to the present day has been $972,000. And, sir, as the representative here 

 of the City Government, I think that I may fittingly congratulate the present 

 administration, the administrations which have gone before it, the Trustees of 

 the Museum, and all the people, upon the fact that in all these vast expenditures 

 there has never been even a suspicion of party self-seeking or the slightest hint 

 of the diversion of one dollar for a political or unworthy purpose ! To the 

 credit of the City it can be proudly said that all its representatives, during the 

 thirty years of its contract with the Trustees, have with scrupulous fidelity 

 lived up to its part of the bargain for common good. 



The City has cheerfully and liberally provided the buildings, policed and 

 maintained them, but never in the slightest degree has it attempted to interfere 

 with the management of the Museum. Such management, the control of the 

 exhibits, of the library, of the lectures, and of everything pertaining to them, 

 has most properly been left entirely within the control of the very competent 

 gentlemen who have been trained for such service. It is only by holding firmly 



