MODERN EXHIBITIONAL TENDENCIES OF MUSEUMS 
OF NATURAL HISTORY AND -ETHNOGRAPHY 
DESIGNED FOR PUBLIC USE. 
HENRY L. WARD. 
The modem museum is a complex institution; the product 
of many years of evolution in biology and geology taken in their 
most comprehensive senses and also of a special science, muse¬ 
ology, that has but recently gained sufficient prominence to be 
designated by a distinctive name. 
There have been many and profound changes during the last 
score of years in the relationships between museums and the 
public and these have had their principle outward expression in 
altered conditions in the exhibition rooms. Whether these have 
been most effected by a normal, internal evolution or by the 
reaction to external stimuli is worth considering in order to de¬ 
termine which has been the more potent factor. 
Some museums have been established in a commercial spirit, 
either in expectation that the admittance fees would yield a pro¬ 
fit or that they would prove valuable accessory attractions to 
some establishment of a different character, but these have na¬ 
turally been in charge of men of mediocre or low scientific at¬ 
tainments and have had little apparent influence on museum 
development. 
The important scientific museums have been in charge of re¬ 
putable scientists each with his cabinet of curatorial specialists, 
and not a little of the speculative advancement of natural history 
and a large amount of systematic work has emanated therefrom. 
The successful performance of such work induced if not necessi- 
