RELATION TO COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE. 317 



more than supplement in certain directions those illustrations of medi- 

 cine as an art which the medical museums in the city contain. Thus 

 the forms of electrical machine most suitable for therapeutic use, the 

 qualities of steel best fitted for .surgical instruments; the similar 

 qualities of caoutchouc and gutta percha ; the varieties of distilling, 

 and other pharmaceutical apparatus ; the different kinds of glass and 

 porcelain vessels useful in the laboratory and surgery ; and some other 

 things, would probably find a place in the museum, but the art of 

 medicine as a whole would not be represented. 



In the same way, so long as the Royal Agricultural Society and 

 Highland Society watch over the interests of agriculture ; the Royal 

 Academy over those of the fine arts ; the Architectural Society over 

 those which occupy the builder ; the Society of Antiquaries over 

 the ancient progress of all the arts, the extent to which the in- 

 dustrial museum will charge itself with illustrating the scope 

 of agriculture as an art ; with collecting the pigments, marbles, 

 bronzes, and other materials with which the painter and the sculp- 

 tor work ; with the accumulation of building materials ; and with the 

 acquisition of examples of the earlier and ruder stages of industrial 

 processes, will to a great degree depend upon the limits which may 

 hereafter be agreed to, as boun ling the domains of the different societies 

 named. Each of these bodies has a central province peculiar to itself, 

 on which, even if it were unoccupied, the industrial museum would 

 not intrude. Each of them has also a border-land which the museum 

 cannot help overlapping, as it has a border-land which they unavoidably 

 overlap. The extent to which this mutual infringement shall take place 

 must be matter of amicable compromise. In any case an ample area, 

 entirely its own, will be left to each institution, and all will be gainers 

 by a wise division of the debated land. 



Such a collection I have supposed, of raw and workable materials, 

 modifying agents, transforming machinery, and finished products, 

 would prove specially instructive— 1. To those ignorant of the capa- 

 bilities of an industrial art, and solicitous to appreciate them ; and 2. 

 To those desirous of ascertaining the imperfections of an industrial art 

 with a view to improve it. To the latter only will I refer. The chief 

 and ultimate aim of an industrial museum is the improvement of the 

 useful arts, which cease to exist, or exist only as stunted dwarfs 

 where they do not make progress. But it is not only from the ranks of 

 experienced workers in an art, that its improvers always or perhaps most 

 frequently come. 



We are accustomed to say that every man knows his own trade 

 best, and to warn the shoemaker not to step beyond his last. Although, 

 however, the improvement of particular arts must mainly be looked for 

 from those who have inherited a special pecuniary as well as profes- 

 sional interest in them, still we must not forget the effect of custom in 

 rendering men indifferent to defects, or of age in making them impa- 



