158 
Psyche 
[September 
THE INSECT COLLECTIONS OF A PUBLIC MUSEUM 1 
By Albert P. Morse 
The aims of a public museum may be said to be primarily 
recreational and educational. Sometimes a museum is 
maintained also partly for purposes of preservation of ma- 
terial collected for or presented to a State, or other polit- 
ical, scientific, or educational institution. In-so-far as its 
collections arouse interest in and impart information about 
man and his environment or activities it belongs in one or 
both of the first two fields; if it conserves specimens for 
future examination by students it may claim to belong in 
the last also. Formerly, in most cases, all three fields were 
cultivated by the same institution. Of late, with the devel- 
opment of children’s museums, there is an increasing tend- 
ency to relegate the duty of preservation to the larger, bet- 
ter endowed, and perhaps more scientific institutions, leav- 
ing the fields of recreation and education to be cultivated 
largely by the smaller museums. These are, perhaps (some- 
times, at least) more closely in touch with the people of the 
district in which the museum is located. 
Probably all of the older museums, founded in a more 
serious age by serious-minded people, still retain or have 
passed through all the phases mentioned. My statements 
are based upon the experience of the Peabody Museum of 
Salem and may need to be modified by that of others. This 
institution was founded as the museum of the East India 
Marine Society of Salem, in 1799. Its purpose was to con- 
tain such objects as the sea-captains of Salem and vicinity 
brought back from beyond the seas for the enlightenment 
and delectation of themselves and their fellow-members. It 
has always been open to the members of the society and 
their friends, — and even to the general public, by free ad- 
mission tickets, — since the day of its founding, and it is 
thus one of the oldest public museums in the country. 
Address of the retiring President of the Cambridge Entomological 
Club, May 8, 1934. 
