air, and the readiest access. With how much greater pleasure the workman and his family could spend a day at the museum, if at intervals they could stroll out on to the grass, among flowers and under shady trees, to enjoy the refreshments they had brought with them. They would then return to the building with renewed zest, and would probably escape the fatigue and headache that a day in a museum almost invariably brings on. The public park is the proper locality for the public museum. In designing museums, architects seem to pay little regard to the special purposes they are intended to fulfil. They often adopt the general arrangement of a church, or the immense galleries and lofty halls of a palace. Now, the main object of a museum-building is to furnish the greatest amount of well lighted space, for the convenient arrangement and exhibition of objects which almost all require to be closely examined. At the same time they should be visible by several persons at once without crowding, and admit of others freely passing by them. None except the very largest specimens should be placed so as to rise higher than seven feet above the floor, so that palatial rooms and extensive galleries, requiring proportionate altitude, are exceedingly wasteful of space, and otherwise ill adapted and unnecessary for the real purposes of a museum. It is true that side-galleries against the walls may be and often are used to utilize the height, but these are almost necessarily narrow, and totally unadapted for the proper exhibition of any but a limited class of objects. By this plan, too, the whole upper-floor space is lost, which is of great importance, because a large proportion of objects are best exhibited on tables or in detached cases. Following out this view, a simple and economical plan for a museum would seem to be, a series of long rooms or galleries, about thirty-five or forty feet wide, and twelve or fourteen feet high on each floor, the four or five feet below the ceiling on both sides being an almost continuous series of window openings, while at rather wide intervals large windows might descend to within three feet of the floor. At such distances apart as were found most convenient for the arrangement of the collections, movable upright cases might be placed transversely, leaving a central space of about five feet for a continuous passage; and the compartments thus formed might be completed by partitions and doors connecting opposite cases, wherever it was thought advisable to isolate any well-marked group of animals, or other division of the museum. By this means the proportion between wall-cases and floor space might be regulated exactly according to the requirements of each portion of the collection; and abundant light would be obtained for the perfect examination of every specimen. Two of the great evils of museums are, crowding and distraction. By the crowding of specimens, the effect of each is weakened or destroyed; the eye takes in so many at once that it is continually wandering towards something more strange and beautiful, and there is nothing to concentrate the attention on a special object. Distraction is produced also by the great size of the galleries, and the multiplicity of objects that strike the eye. It is almost impossible for a casual visitor to avoid the desire of continually going on to see what comes next, or wondering what is that bright mass of colour or strange form that catches the eye at the other end of the long gallery. These evils can best be avoided, by keeping, as far as possible, each natural group of objects in a separate room, or a separate compartment of that room-by limiting as much as possible the number of illustrative groups of species, and at the same time making each group as attractive and instructive as possible. The object aimed at should be, to compel attention to each group of specimens. This may be done by making it so interesting or beautiful at first sight as to secure a close examination; by carefully isolating it, so that no other object close by should divide attention with it; and by giving so much information and interesting the mind in so many collateral matters connected with it, as to excite the observant and reflective as well as the emotional faculties. The general system of arrangement and exhibition here pointed out does not at all depend on the building. It can be applied in any museum, and is, I believe, already to some extent adopted in our best local institutions. It has, however, never yet been carried out systematically ; and till this is done, we can form no true estimate of how popular a Natural History Museum may become, or how much it may aid in the great work of national education. NOTE. The paper on American Museums, which follows this, was written eighteen years later, in Washington, immediately after a careful study of the two most remarkable museums in the United States. It will be seen, that one of these has carried out most of the suggestions of my early article, and has besides developed the idea of illustrating the Geographical Distribution of Animals which is, so far as I know, entirely new. CHAPTER II AMERICAN MUSEUMS The Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. THE immense energy of the American people in all that relates to business, locomotion, and pleasure, is to some extent manifested also in their educational institutions, and in approaching this great and all-important subject they possess some special advantages over ourselves. They are comparatively free from those old-world establishments and customs whose obstructiveness so often paralyzes the efforts of the educational reformer, and their originality of thought and action has thus freer scope; they are not afraid of experiments, and do not hastily condemn a thing because it is new; while, in all they undertake they are determined to have the best or the biggest attainable. Hence it is that colleges and universities for women, schools where the two sexes study together, institutes for the most complete instruction in technology and in all branches of experimental science, and the combination of manual with mental training as part of the regular school course, are to be found in successful operation in various parts of America, though, with rare exceptions, only talked about by us; while in most of the higher schools and colleges science and modern literature take equal rank with those classical and mathematical studies which still hold the first places in Great Britain. The same originality of conception, and the same desire to attain the best practical results are manifested in some of the great American museums, which now rival, in certain special departments, the long-established national museums of Europe; although there is, of course, as yet, no approach to the vast accumulation of treasures of oldworld natural history which is to be found at South Kensington. Notwithstanding the deficiency of material, however, the Harvard Museum is far in advance of ours as an educational institution, whether as regards the general public, the private student, or the specialist; and as it is probably equally in advance of every European museum, some general account of it may be both interesting and instructive, especially to those who have felt themselves bewildered by the countless masses of unorganized specimens exhibited in the vast and often gloomy halls and galleries of our national institution. Let us first consider, briefly, what are the usual defects of great museums, and we shall then be better able to appreciate both what has been aimed at, and what has been effected at Harvard. Our British Museum, which may be taken as a type of the more extensive institutions of the kind, originated in the bequest of a private collector more than a century ago, and has since aggregated to itself most of the collections made by Government expeditions and explorations, while it has received extensive donations of entire collections made at great expense by wealthy amateurs, and has also of late years made large purchases from professional collectors. Such a museum began, of course, by exhibiting to the public everything it possessed, and with some exceptions this plan has been continued for the larger and more popular groups of animals. Large glazed wall-cases for stuffed quadrupeds and birds, with table cases for shells, starfish, insects, and minerals, were early in use; and while these were gradually improved in quality, size and workmanship, they have continued, till quite recently, to be almost the sole mode of arranging the collection. During the latter half of the present century the accession of fresh specimens has been so extensive that the task of VOL. II. C |