lxxxvi PROCEEDINGS-PERTHSHIRE SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 
available skill and care should be spent upon its preservation, and upon 
rendering it capable of teaching the lesson it is intended to convey. 
Every specimen should have its definite purpose, and no absolute 
duplicate should on any account be admitted. Above all, the pur¬ 
pose for which each specimen is exhibited, and the main lesson to 
be derived from it must be distinctly indicated by the labels affixed, 
both as headings of the various divisions of the series and to the 
individual specimens. The excellent saying of Mr. Brown Goode 
can not be too often repeated—“An efficient educational museum 
may be described as a collection of instructive labels, each illustrated 
by a well-selected specimen.” 
The Perth Museum is, as far as the building is concerned, admir¬ 
able. The general arrangement is all that could be desired. The 
collections that are already contained in it constitute an excellent 
nucleus. Having spent so much money and so much labour upon 
bringing it to its present condition, are you prepared to maintain it ? 
Recollect what I have said about a museum requiring watchful and 
incessant care. Not only must the specimens contained in it already, 
all more or less perishable in their nature, be continually looked to, 
cleaned, and renewed when necessary, but fresh ones must be added 
to make the different series complete, and they must often be re¬ 
arranged and re-named to keep pace with the continuous advance of 
scientific knowledge. An educational museum cannot stand still, or 
it ceases to be of any value. It will have to keep abreast of the 
rapidly flowing stream of knowledge. Now, that can not be done 
without continual expenditure. If you are to have a museum which 
is to fulfil its highest purpose, and to be an example to others of the 
kind throughout the kingdom, as I hope is your ambition, you must 
face that question. The main want is of course, the personal atten¬ 
tion of competent persons to act as curators, a want at present, 
I am sorry to say, nowhere sufficiently provided for in museums. 
Voluntary assistance is, no doubt, often valuable, and you have had 
splendid examples of what it can do, but it can never be depended 
upon for any long continuance. Death, or removals, flagging of zeal, 
and other causes tell severely in the long run against that resource. 
You must have a permanent paid curator; in fact, if the Museum is 
to assume any important position, curators with special knowledge of 
various departments will be required. Museums will never be what 
they ought, or do all that might legitimately be expected of them, 
until the curators’ profession is properly recognised and properly 
remunerated. 
Now I come to my last point. How is the permanence of a 
museum like this to be secured ? As I said in an early part of my 
address, museums were once all the private property of individuals. 
Then Associations or Societies of individuals took them up. Now it 
is being gradually recognised that it is the duty of Governments and 
Municipalities to maintain them. Nearly all the London Scientific 
Societies formerly possessed museums, but as the collections grew—as 
was their natural tendency—the expense of keeping them up became 
a burden, and they have been gradually transferred to Government 
or other institutions. The Royal Society, as mentioned before, once 
