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FIFTY YEARS OF MUSEUM WORK 



tions upon art and artists, are subjects well capable of illustration, and there are 

 many simple and reasonable questions often asked by the intelligent visitor that 

 might well be answered by the exhibits. The visitor for instance has read much of 

 some particular school, let us say the Barbizon school, and he would like to see a 

 dozen pictures illustrating the work of members of that school accompanied by a label 

 a half-page long telling him what to look for. Here is where the art museum might 

 well take a place in supplemental education and where, so far as I know, it fails to do 

 so. 



The Museum of Natural History has its index or synoptic series, 

 presenting a sketch of the Animal Kingdom from the simplest to the 

 highest forms, from which the visitor may gain some idea of the great 

 branches of the animal kingdom, their common origin, development, 

 and relation to one another. Should not the Museum of Art do some- 

 thing of the same kind and give the visitor some idea of the origin, 

 progress and ramifications of art? Such a collection need not necessarily 

 be a large one, but, to my mind, it would be mightily instructive. Years 

 ago I saw such a collection in the technical museum of Dresden, and to 

 this day that collection impresses me more than any other art collection 

 I saw in Europe, for it exemplified the progress of mankind. It did not 

 show me a lot of battered statues that the guide-book told me were 

 beautiful, it did not display a series of paintings, marked masterpieces 

 whose hues had been dimmed by age and outlines half obliterated by the 

 iconoclastic hand of time, but, as I passed from room to room I could see 

 for myself how, starting with the simplest materials and subjects, art 

 had progressed from age to age, ever advancing, ever changing, ever 

 embodying and reflecting not only man's ideas of what constitutes 

 beauty— for beauty is only a relative term— but man's growing ability 

 to translate those ideas into form and color. 



From the viewpoint of the Naturalist there is one great lack in 

 Museums of Art— and that is labels. And it is rather interesting to 

 note that Dr. Gilman does not include them in his statement of how the 

 museums may be of service to visitors. Now to my mind there is ab- 

 solutely nothing that can make up for the lack of labels, neither bulletins, 

 catalogues, handbooks nor libraries. 



A year or two ago there was a popular song whose refrain was "I 

 want what I want when I want it." This is precisely the attitude of 

 the visitor— when he desires information he wants it at once; he doesn't 

 wish to go home or to the library, or even to a reading table or a catalogue 

 to find out about the object. This is the opportunity for the museum to 

 impart information, and this opportunity should not be missed. 



Some of you, like myself, may have had the pleasure of seeing Willard 

 in "The Middleman," and can recall the scene wherein the little party calls 



