THE COLLEGE MUSEUM 
359 
the mind of the taxidermist whose work they are. Now it is not 
my purpose to ridicule such exhibits for I have been guilty of 
all the above and our institution still contains specimens of the 
above type, but I have tried to see what better things may come 
to us all in the effort to get away from these travesties on the 
most beautiful of created things, these ^‘museums of unnatural 
history, ’ ’ as they have been called. 
The primary function of a college museum, as I understand 
it, is its utility as an agency for illustrating what is taught in 
the curriculum. This at once limits the field of the college 
museum. In general, articles of virtu and mere curios are not 
desirable, and other limitations may suggest themselves accord- 
ing to the range of the subjects taught in the institution. A 
knowledge of what to keepi out of the museum is quite as neces- 
sary as what to admit and feature, and the common practice of 
turning over to the college museum the curios of the ‘‘what not” 
or the accumulations of the garret, while it yields an occasional 
good and useful specimen, generally should be discouraged un- 
less one is allowed a free hand in augmenting the dump with 
much of this rare (?) junk. Another bugbear is the • collection 
which widow so and so wishes to leave to the colllege as a memo- 
rial to her husband on condition that it be kept intact in its own 
case as presented. Unless such collection can be distributed, of 
course, with the donor’s name on each specimen, the collection 
is a nuisance, and only if large enough to be separately housed or, 
in case it is a special collection along some one line is it worth 
admittance. Imagine a library made up of Smith’s or Jones’ 
or Brown’s private book collection each ranging all the way 
from the works of the immortal William S. to. the Tip Top' 
Weekly and each housed in its own peculiar case with a label 
indicating why its owner had no further use for it ! 1 am con- 
vinced that the college museum may well keep within the bounds 
of the subjects of the departmental curriculum and that all the 
material admitted be available and free for such disposition as 
in the curator’s judgment seems best. 
With a view then to its usefulness in ‘teaching, I strongly 
favor the placing of emphasis on local collections. The local 
fiora and fauna, geology and mineralogy, should receive first 
consideration. To a large degree this material can be secured 
with comparatively little expense, and in the course of years the 
collections for that locality made by carefully directed students. 
