4 



FIFTY YEARS OF MUSEUM WOHK 



These briefly stated facts will be amplified in places, mainly with a 

 view to showing just what were the circumstances that led to my taking 

 up, and continuing to follow, a museum career. 



The question is often asked, "What is the proper training for a 

 museum man, what should he study, what should he do, how can one 

 secure a position in a museum?" and some attempts have been made to 

 answer these questions by establishing museum courses. 



Personally, I doubt the possibility of creating a race of museum 

 men any more than that of creating a race of writers. Just as no course 

 in English literature, be it never so good, will create a writer, so no course 

 in museum methods will make a curator; it may give him training and 

 development but the ability must be there at the outset. Natural 

 aptitude counts far more than training, and the ability to translate facts 

 into exhibits and labels, and to do it in an interesting manner, cannot be 

 taught. 



These "reminiscences" may show how one individual became a 

 Museum Man, but that they will throw any light on the general proposi- 

 tion of what is the proper training for museum work and how one can 

 secure a position in a museum is doubtful. 



There is no one word that covers the term, "Museum Man," bor- 

 rowed from Doctor Goode and used here. It means a man gifted with a 

 natural aptitude for museum work, one who can plan, install and label 

 exhibits, care for the collections in his charge and do something with the 

 means and material at his disposal, no matter how limited these may be: 1 

 one who has for his motto the words of Roosevelt, "Do what yotx can, 

 where you are, with what you have." The term, " Museum Man," 

 is by no means synonymous with Curator, for not every Museum Man 

 is a Curator and many a Curator is very far from being a Museum 

 Man. 



It is possibly due to my own experience that I feel that among the 

 qualifications for a "Museum Man," mere education— and education 

 is not knowledge — is apt to be overestimated, and mechanical skill, the 

 ability to do things, underestimated. 



Administrative ability, the power to plan and direct, is another 

 matter; like the poet, the administrator is born, not made, and is in 

 turn distinct from executive ability, the power to carry out the plans of 

 another. Though frequently, if not usually, confounded, they are really 

 quite distinct. 



