505] Museum-History and Museums of History. 261 
The„ Western Museum, in Cincinnati, was founded about 
1815, by Robert Best, M.D., afterwards of Lexington, Ky., 
who seems to have been a capable collector, and who 
contributed matter to Godman’s ‘‘American Natural His- 
tory.” In 1818 a society styled the “Western Museum 
Society ” was organized among the citizens, which, though 
scarcely a scientific organization, seems to have taken a 
somewhat liberal and public-spirited view of what a museum 
should be. With the establishment of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1812, and the New 
York Lyceum of Natural History, the history of American 
scientific museums had its true beginning. 
The intellectual life of America is so closely allied to 
that of England, that the revival of interest in museums, 
and in popular education at the middle of the present cen- 
tury is especially significant to us. The great Exhibition 
of 1851 was one of the most striking features of the indus- 
trial revolution in England, that great transformation 
which, following closely upon the introduction of railroads, 
turned England feudal and agricultural, into England 
democratic and commercial. 
The great Exhibition marked an epoch in the intellectual 
progress of English-speaking people. “ The great Exhibi- 
tion,” writes a popular novelist, and a social philosopher 
as well, “ did one great service for country people : it 
taught them how easy it is to get to London, and what a 
mine of wealth, especially for after-memory and purposes 
of conversation, exists in that great place.” 
Under the wise administration of the South Kensington 
staff a great system of educational museums has been de- 
veloped all through the United Kingdom. 
Our own Centennial Exhibition in 1876 was almost as 
great a revelation to the people of the United States. The 
thoughts of the country were opened to many things before 
undreamed of. One thing we may regret — that we have no 
such widespread system of museums as that which has 
developed in the motherland with South Kensington as its 
administrative centre. England has had nearly forty years 
