MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 



13 



portant principle in museum organization which has been sup- 

 ported by Goode and Flower and is to-day quite generally adopted. 



In 1883, or ten years after Mr. Agassiz assumed the care of 

 the Museum, he was able to report that the building had been 

 doubled in size and that the invested funds for the maintenance of 

 the Museum had been increased over three fold. Both results 

 were largely due to him. The uses of the several rooms noted 

 by Mr. Agassiz at that time were not essentially different from 

 those that prevail to-day. 



Along with the systematic exhibit, Mr. Agassiz built up the 

 geographic one, and increased the facilities for research by the 

 acquisition of extensive collections, which were conveniently 

 stored and made accessible to all able to make proper use of them. 



The difficulties of a geographic exhibit are well recognized; 

 none of the great museums of the world, those of London, Paris, 

 or Berlin, have attempted such an exhibit, and there are but two 

 in Europe that have done so, both of which, one in Dublin and the 

 other in Dresden, are on a comparatively small scale. And yet 

 so successfully and with so true a sense of proportion did Mr. 

 Agassiz develop the whole Museum that the distinguished English 

 naturalist Wallace stated in 1887 that as an educational institu- 

 tion for the public, for students, and for the special investigator 

 the Museum of Comparative Zoology was superior to the British 

 Museum and "probably equally in advance of every European 

 Museum." 



Mr. Agassiz's eminence as a Museum Director is secure and 

 his standards of work will always be an incentive to those who 

 follow him. 



Samuel Henshaw. 



