THE 



MUSEUM GAZETTE. 



No. 6. OCTOBER, 1906. Vol. i. 



EDITORIAL NOTES. 



In the first instance our Museum Gazette had for its 

 alternative title, "A Journal of Objective Education." It 

 was strongly represented to us that this latter expression 

 might not be understood, and would repel readers. So it was 

 changed in our second number to "A Journal of Field Study," 

 which was intended to mean the same thing. What we 

 wished to imply was that our Gazette would concern itself 

 with the examination of facts, and the inspection of things 

 themselves, rather than with merely verbal statements. For 

 us " Objective Education," " Museum - teaching," and 

 " Field-study " are terms which are applicable to the same 

 pursuits. 



We may fairly claim in the poet-philosopher, Goethe, a 

 pioneer in the cause of Objective education. He loved field- 

 study and delighted in collecting. He kept snakes in order 

 to observe them, and he spent hours in his garden, gazing 

 into the faces of his flowers, and speculating on the formation 

 of their leaves and petals. From these he would, when 

 indoors, turn to the assortment of fossils, or of fragments 

 of rock, coins, medals, or portraits. His interest in every- 

 thing that was real was intense. He seemed to read Terence's 

 famous line, " Homo sum," &c, as if it comprised not man 

 alone but all Nature. One of his friends wrote of him : — 

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