Ward—Modern Exhibitional Tendencies of Museums. 335 
There is no gainsaying that a museum should present the 
facts as they are found if by this is meant that it should not pre¬ 
sent as fact what is unsubstantiated in nature; but if the public, 
unassisted by a guide or lecturer, is to get at an understanding 
of many of the processes of nature as we think that we know 
them, then it is essential that there be a marshaling of the ob¬ 
jects that seem to prove these generally accepted interpretations 
of the processes. There should, however, be no straining or dis¬ 
tortion of the indubitable data connected with the specimens, 
and theories should be enunciated as such. A popular treatise 
on any subject must make a careful selection of the information 
that it is to conveyt, must take up what seem to be the more im¬ 
portant features and ignore those of less importance. 
To be encyclopedic in treatment is to cease to be popular and 
results in repelling rather than in attracting the average man; 
and so with museums it is conceived that the way to be assured 
of conveying a fair knowledge of a subject is to limit the ideas 
to a reasonable number that it is deemed worth while emphasiz¬ 
ing and then by display and labels impressing these on the pub¬ 
lic so that the museum management may be confident that 
something more than a hazy idea of a conglomeration of curios 
is taken away by the visitor. Though the principle of selection 
was put into practice in this country about fifty years ago it 
apparently has until lately been ignored or lost sight of in many 
quarters while in a few others the idea has obtained that it was 
wrong in principle. Recently the question has come up for 
discussion in connection with the fundamental one as to the 
aim and object of such museums as we are discussing. The 
question involved may perhaps be stated succinctly as: Whether 
it is well for a museum designed for the public to be an undi¬ 
gested reflection of nature or whether it is not better to make it 
educational ? If it is the one it can hardly be the other. 
Some time since it was impressed upon my attention that 
here in Wisconsin it was generally believed by librarians 
that it was quite the proper thing for libraries to establish mu¬ 
seums as departments of themselves and that anyone was capa¬ 
ble of administrating them, so that when an invitation was given 
