Museums and Museums 48 r 



covered when we have said that no General Museum should 

 neglect to do its very best as regards local objects. 



A General Museum is obviously one which does not restrict 

 itself, but collects everything that is valuable and for which it 

 can find room. It may develop special departments, and will 

 do so in connection with the locality in which it is placed. 

 It is a repertory of objects for scientific study, and it is of 

 great value as offering a centre to which should gravitate 

 everything of interest which residents in the neighbourhood 

 may chance to secure either at home or on their travels. It 

 should see that all its objects are properly labelled and de- 

 scribed, but it does not necessarily undertake to make its 

 treasures instructive to the uninitiated. 



A County Museum is usually a large and prosperous General 

 Museum, and even less than the latter does it undertake direct 

 teaching, as distinct from and additional to efficient illus- 

 tration. Such a museum may, however, very well provide 

 an Education Department in a separate building or otherwise. 



Metropolitan ov National Museums are County Museums on a 

 grand scale and are better endowed. They aim at complete- 

 ness, pay good salaries, and supply to students examples 

 of what they could not easily find elsewhere. They are, 

 at the same time, eminently instructive and attractive, 

 for their objects are often most beautifully displayed. Their 

 aim is, however, the promotion of science rather than the 

 education of the multitude, and it would be a great pity 

 that in aiming at the latter anything should be sacrificed in 

 reference to the former. 



An Educational Museum is one which foregoes the ambition to 

 advance science, and lays its plans to afford, by the display 

 and description of objects, an insight into the knowledge of 

 Nature and Art to those as yet uninstructed. For this pur- 

 pose good typical objects are selected, and they are accom- 

 panied not only by untechnical descriptions and labels, but 

 by maps and pictorial illustrations whenever desirable. Such 

 a museum is designed not only to supply materials for the 



