[A.] 



REPORT OF THE CURATOR 



TO THE 



MUSEUM COMMITTEE. 



As will be seen by this Report, the past year has been an 

 important one in the history of the Museum, changing radically 

 its financial management and greatly enlarging the field of its 

 activity. Though the assistance and constant support of the 

 State were all-important to the Museum in its early stages, 

 enabling it, with the help of a separate board of trustees and 

 an independent faculty, to develop more rapidly than it could 

 have done in direct connection with any other educational 

 establishment, the time has now come when the institution, 

 which has thus far owed so much to the liberality of the 

 State, must depend for its future prosperity upon the friends 

 of the cause of education in general. 



The organization of the Museum has been simplified little 

 by little, and it has seemed wise to the present Board of 

 Trustees to reduce the complication still further by consoli- 

 dating the two boards hitherto holding the property and 

 having charge of the institution into one body. They have 

 thought it advisable to petition the Legislature for permission 

 to transfer the property in their charge to the Corporation of 

 Harvard College. The successful close of the Agassiz Memo- 

 rial Fund placed in trust in the hands of the Corporation, 

 offered a fitting occasion, and their petition asking for the 



