30 



FIFTY YEARS OF MUSEUM WORK 



so far as their collections are concerned, are seldom, or never, formed 

 according to a definite plan. Their growth is sometimes influenced 

 by circumstances, a bequest, the gift of a collection, or of money 

 for the purchase of a collection. More often it reflects the interest 

 of some man, or men, in particular branches of science or art. These 

 men may be able or energetic curators of great persuasive powers, 

 wealthy friends of the museum, or even collectors who have the gift of 

 persuading such men to buy their collections or to undertake certain 

 expeditions. The result is that museums are more or less unbalanced, 

 overdeveloped in some directions, atrophied in others. 



Such, briefly, is the record of fifty years, during which time it has 

 fallen to me to hold a variety of positions in the two most important 

 museums in the country. It has not been a career of unalloyed pleasure 

 and the pleasure has been in an inverse ratio to the importance of the 

 position occupied. The higher and more responsible the office, the more 

 is the time of the administrative officer taken up with details, the less 

 can he do as an individual, the less can he show as the result of his ex- 

 penditure of time and energy. In my own case the greatest tangible 

 results were produced when I was preparator and assistant curator, for 

 it was then that I organized and largely prepared the exhibit of the 

 Department of Comparative Anatomy in the U. S. National Museum, 

 and the small Synoptic Series of Invertebrates. 



The larger the museum, the longer it has been in existence, the more 

 difficult it is for one man, and especially for the director, to make an 

 impression on it; the director is submerged in the institution. The best 

 he can do is to stimulate some undeveloped or desirable branch of work 

 and to restrain so far as possible overgrowth in others, or prevent the 

 commitment of an institution to long and expensive undertakings, to 

 wait for opportunities that may never come. 



A very large portion of my time since becoming director has been 

 spent in salvage work; in trying to do something with exhibits that had 

 been begun by some one and then dropped, either through cessation of 

 interest, or through a desire to develop some new idea, or branch of 

 work. Many of these abandoned projects were well worthy of being car- 

 ried out, for change is not necessarily progress, though many a young 

 curator seems to think it is. But while it has often been interesting to 

 see what could be done with rejected material or the abandoned plans 

 of others, yet after fifteen years of such work it becomes a little tiresome. 



I do not wish to appear egotistical but I presume I have had more 

 disappointments than any other museum man, more unrealized ideas if 



