308 INDUSTRIAL MUSEUMS IN THEIR 



trial museums. In support of this argument, I would also, but with 

 qualification, refer to the erection of the Sydenham Palace, which, 

 though eminently deserving of encouragement on many grounds, cares 

 only in part for the Industrial Arts. It is further strengthened by a 

 consideration of the circumstances which preceded the birth of those 

 older, yet withal recent, museums in or near London ; that at Jermyn 

 street, which originated in the fact of important minerals accumulating 

 in the hands of the geological surveyors ; and that of Kew, which 

 originated in the accumulation of equally important vegetable products 

 in the hands of the Curator of Kew Gardens. Unless the authorities 

 had thrown away the one class of objects and burned the other, they 

 could not well have done otherwise than give them house-room. No 

 sooner, however, had they done so than everyone saw that these collec- 

 tions which had, as it were, come together of themselves, were of the 

 greatest interest and value. Out of a similar conjuncture of circum- 

 stances, arose the Museum of Irish Industry in Dublin. I might name 

 other institutions, but these may suffice to prove the truth of the state- 

 ment with which I commenced, that the other industrial museums of 

 the country created themselves ; in other words, they were not the 

 result of a priori view r s on the part of speculative founders, or sudden 

 creations of government. You will not for a moment suppose that I 

 mean to say that the museums referred to suddenly came into existence 

 without human help. On the other hand, each of them owes its deve- 

 lopment to the labours of many energetic men, who found these labours 

 no light task. But it is most remarkable that alike Sir Henry de la 

 Beche, in describing the origin of the Industrial Geological Museum in 

 Jermyn street, London : Sir William Hooker, in describing the origin 

 of the Industrial Botanical Museum at Kew ; and Sir liobert Kane, in 

 describing the origin of the Industrial Museum at Dublin, state expli- 

 citly, that it was because materials accumulated around them, not 

 because they looked about for materials that their respective museums 

 came into being. In no case, moreover, did government come to their 

 assistance, till it was placed beyond doubt that, in possession or near 

 prospect, specimens were largely available for each of these museums ; 

 and in conformity with this, when government resolved to establish an 

 Industrial Museum in Scotland, it made the collection of specimens the 

 first thing, the building of a permanent museum the second. I dwell 

 upon those points, because they are scarcely known to the general public 

 whom you represent, and because I cannot but think that the indepen- 

 dent origin of the three non-Scottish industrial museums affords a 

 powerful threefold argument in favour of the value of such institutions, 

 as things for which the time was ripe, and by neglecting which we shall 

 certainly suffer. 



In no part of the empire has the value of museums, as important 

 aids in practical education, been longer or more fully recognised than 

 in Edinburgh, so that I may say that, with one consent, and having the 



