MUSEUM ORGANISATION[1]

It is twenty-six years since this Association met in Newcastle-on-Tyne. It had then the advantage of being presided over by one of the most distinguished and popular of your fellow-townsmen.

Considering the age usually attained by those upon whom the honour of the presidency falls, and the length of time which elapses before the Association repeats its visit, it must have rarely happened that any one who has held the office is spared, not only to be present at another meeting in the town in which he has presided, but also to take such an active part in securing its success, and to extend such a hospitable welcome to his successor, as Lord Armstrong has done upon the present occasion.

The address which was delivered at that meeting must have been full of interest to the great majority of those present. It treated of many subjects more or less familiar and important to the dwellers in this part of the world, and it treated them with the hand of a master, a combination which always secures the attention of an audience.

When it came to my knowledge that in the selection of the President for this meeting the choice had fallen upon me, I was filled with apprehension. There was nothing in my previous occupations or studies from which I felt that I could evolve anything in special sympathy with what is universally recognised as the prevailing genius of this district. I was, however, somewhat reassured when reminded that in the regular rotation by which the equal representation in the presidential office of the different branches of science included in the Association is secured, the turn had come round for some one connected with biological subjects to occupy the chair which, during the past seven years, has been filled with such distinction by engineers, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, and geologists. I was also reminded that the Association, though of necessity holding its meeting in some definite locality, was by no means local in its character, but that its sphere was co-extensive, not with the United Kingdom only, but with the whole of the British Dominions, and that our proceedings are followed with interest wherever our language is understood--I may say, throughout the civilised world. Furthermore, although its great manufacturing industries, the eminence of its citizens for their skill and intelligence in the practical application of mechanical sciences, and the interesting and important geological features of its vicinity, have conferred such fame on Newcastle as almost to have over-shadowed its other claims to distinction in connection with science, this neighbourhood is also associated with Bewick, with Johnson, with Alder, Embleton, Hutton, Atthey, Norman, the two Hancocks, the two Bradys, and other names honoured in the annals of biology; it has long maintained a school of medicine of great repute; and there has lately been established here a natural history museum, which in some of its features is a model for institutions of the kind, and which, I trust, will be a means of encouraging in this town some of the objects the Association was designed to promote.

There can be no doubt that among the various methods by which the aims of the British Association (as expressed in its full title, the _advancement of science_) may be brought about, the collection and preservation of objects available for examination, study, and reference--in fact, the formation of what are now called “museums”--is one of very great practical importance; so much so, indeed, that it seems to me one to the consideration of which it is desirable to devote some time upon such an occasion as this. It is a subject still little understood, though, fortunately, beginning to attract attention. It has already been brought before the notice of the Association, both in presidential and sectional addresses. A committee of our members is at the present time engaged in collecting evidence upon it, and has issued some valuable reports. During the present year an association of curators and others interested in museums has been founded for the purpose of interchange of ideas upon the organisation and management of these institutions. It is a subject, moreover, if I may be allowed to mention a personal reason for bringing it forward this evening, which has, more than any other, occupied my time and my attention almost from the earliest period of my recollection, and I think you will agree with the opinion of one of my distinguished predecessors in this chair, “that the holder of this office will generally do better by giving utterance to what has already become part of his own thought than by gathering matter outside of its habitual range for the special occasion. For,” continued Mr. Spottiswoode, “the interest (if any) of an address consists not so much in the multitude of things therein brought forward as in the individuality of the mode in which they are treated.”

The first recorded institution which bore the name of museum, or temple or haunt of the Muses, was that founded by Ptolemy Soter at Alexandria about 300 B.C.; but this was not a museum in our sense of the word, but rather, in accordance with its etymology, a place appropriated to the cultivation of learning, or which was frequented by a society or academy of learned men devoting themselves to philosophical studies and the improvement of knowledge.

Although certain great monarchs, as Solomon of Jerusalem and Augustus of Rome, displayed their taste and their magnificence by assembling together in their palaces curious objects brought from distant parts of the world,--although it is said that the liberality of Philip and Alexander supplied Aristotle with abundant materials for his researches,--of the existence of any permanent or public collections of natural objects among the ancients there is no record. Perhaps the nearest approach to such collections may be found in the preservation of remarkable specimens, sometimes associated with superstitious veneration, sometimes with strange legendary stories, in the buildings devoted to religious worship. The skins of the gorillas brought by the navigator Hanno from the West Coast of Africa, and hung up in the temple at Carthage, afford a well-known instance.

With the revival of learning in the Middle Ages, the collecting instinct, inborn in so many persons of various nations and periods of history, but so long in complete abeyance, sprang into existence with considerable vigour, and a museum, now meaning a collection of miscellaneous objects, antiquities as well as natural curiosities, often associated with a gallery of sculpture and painting, became a fashionable appendage to the establishment of many wealthy persons of superior culture.

All the earliest collections, comparable to what we call museums, were formed by and maintained at the expense of private individuals; sometimes physicians, whose studies naturally led them to a taste for biological science; often great merchant princes, whose trading connections afforded opportunities for bringing together things that were considered curious from foreign lands; or ruling monarchs in their private capacity. In every case they were maintained mainly for the gratification of the possessor or his personal friends, and rarely, if ever, associated with any systematic teaching or public benefit.

One of the earliest known printed catalogues of such a museum is that of Samuel Quickelberg, a physician of Amsterdam, published in 1565 in Munich. In the same year Conrad Gesner published a catalogue of the collection of Johann Kentmann, a physician of Torgau in Saxony, consisting of about 1600 objects, chiefly minerals, shells, and marine animals. Very soon afterwards we find the Emperor Rudolph II. of Germany busily accumulating treasures which constituted the foundations of the present magnificent museums by which the Austrian capital is distinguished.

In England the earliest important collectors of miscellaneous objects were the two John Tradescants, father and son, the latter of whom published, in 1656, a little work called _Musæum Tradescantianum; or, a Collection of Rarities preserved at South Lambeth, neer London_. The wonderful variety and incongruous juxtaposition of the objects contained in this collection make the catalogue very amusing reading. Under the first division, devoted to “Some Kindes of Birds, their Egges, Beaks, Feathers, Clawes and Spurres,” we find “Divers sorts of Egges from Turkie, one given for a Dragon’s Egge”; “Easter Egges of the Patriarch of Jerusalem;” “Two Feathers of the Phœnix Tayle;” “The Claw of the bird Rock, who, as Authors report, is able to trusse an Elephant.” Among “whole birds” is the famous “Dodar from the Island Mauritius; it is not able to flie, being so big.” This is the identical specimen, the head and foot of which has passed through the Ashmolean into the University Museum of Oxford; but we know not what has become of the claw of the Rock, the Phœnix tail, and the Dragon’s egg. Time does not allow me to mention the wonderful things which occur under the head of “Garments, Vestures, Habits, and Ornaments,” or the “Mechanick, Artificial Workes in Carvings, Turnings, Sowings, and Paintings,” from Edward the Confessor’s knit gloves, and the famous “Pohatan, King of Virginia’s habit, all embroidered with shells or Roanoke,” also still at Oxford, and lately figured and described by Mr. E. B. Tylor, to the “Cherry-stone, upon one side S. George and the Dragon, perfectly cut, and on the other side 88 Emperours’ faces”; or the other “cherry-stone, holding ten dozen of tortois-shell combs made by Edward Gibbons.” But before leaving these private collections I cannot forbear mentioning, as an example of the great aid they often were in advancing science, the indebtedness of Linnæus in his early studies to the valuable zoological museums which it was one of the ruling passions of several kings and queens of Sweden to bring together.

Upon the association of individuals together into societies to promote the advancement of knowledge, these bodies in their corporate capacity frequently made the formation of a museum part of their function. The earliest instance of this in our country was the museum of the Royal Society in Crane Court, of which an illustrated catalogue was published by Dr. Grew in 1681.

The idea that the maintenance of a museum was a portion of the public duty of the State or of any municipal institution had, however, nowhere entered into the mind of man at the beginning of the last century. Even the great teaching bodies, the Universities, were slow in acquiring collections; but it must be recollected that the subjects considered most essential to the education they then professed to give were not those which needed illustration from the objects which can be brought together in a museum. The Italian Universities, where anatomy was taught as a science earlier and more thoroughly than anywhere else in Europe, soon found the desirability of keeping collections of preserved specimens, and the art of preparing them attained a high degree of excellence at Padua and Bologna two centuries ago. But these were generally the private property of the professors, as were nearly all the collections used to illustrate the teaching of anatomy and pathology in our country within the memory of many now living.

Notwithstanding the multiplication of public museums during the present century, and the greater resources and advantages many of these possess, which private collectors cannot command, the spirit of accumulation in individuals has happily not passed away, although usually directed into rather different channels than formerly. The general museums or miscellaneous collections of old are now left to governments and institutions which afford greater guarantee of their permanence and public utility, while admirable service is done to science by those private persons with leisure and means, who, devoting themselves to some special subject, amass the materials by which its study can be pursued in detail either by themselves or by those they know to be qualified to do so. Such collections, if they fulfil their most appropriate destiny, ultimately become incorporated, by gift or purchase, in one or other of the public museums, and then serve as permanent factors in the education of the nation, or rather of the world.

It would be passing beyond the limits of time allotted to this address, indeed going beyond the scope of the Association, if I were to speak of many of the subjects which have pre-eminently exercised the faculties of the collector and formed the materials of which museums are constructed. The various methods by which the mind of man has been able to reproduce the forms of natural objects or to give expression to the images created by his own fancy, from the rudest scratchings of a savage on a bone, or the simplest arrangement of lines employed in ornamenting the roughest piece of pottery, up to the most lovely combinations of form and colour hitherto attained in sculpture or in painting, or in works in metal or in clay, depend altogether on museums for their preservation, for our knowledge of their condition and history in the past, and for the lessons which they can convey for the future.

Apart from the delight which the contemplation of the noblest expressions of art must produce in all cultivated minds, apart also from the curiosity and interest that must be excited by all the less successfully executed attempts to produce similar results, as materials for constructing the true history of the life of man, at different stages of civilisation, in different circumstances of living, and in divers regions of the earth, such collections are absolutely invaluable.

But I must pass them by in order to dwell more in detail upon those which specially concern the advancement of the subjects which come under the notice of this Association--museums devoted to the so-called “natural history” sciences, although much which will be said of them will doubtless be more or less applicable to museums in general.

The terms _natural history_ and _naturalist_ have become deeply rooted in our language, but without any very definite conception of their meaning or the scope of their application. Originally applied to the study of all the phenomena of the universe which are independent of the agency of man, natural history has gradually narrowed down in most people’s minds, in consequence of the invention of convenient and generally understood and accepted terms for some of its various subdivisions, as astronomy, chemistry, geology, etc., into that portion of the subject which treats of the history of creatures endowed with life, for which, until lately, no special name had been invented. Even from this limitation botany was gradually disassociating itself in many quarters, and a “naturalist” and a “zoologist” have nearly become, however irrationally, synonymous terms. The happy introduction and general acceptance of the word “biology,” notwithstanding the objections raised to its etymological signification, have reunited the study of organisms distinguished by the possession of the living principle, and practically eliminated the now vague and indefinite term “natural history” from scientific terminology. As, however, it is certain to maintain its hold in popular language, I would venture to suggest the desirability of restoring it to its original and really definite signification, contrasting it with the history of man and of his works, and of the changes which have been wrought in the universe by his intervention.

It was in this sense that, when the rapid growth of the miscellaneous collections in the British Museum at Bloomsbury (the expansion of Sir Hans Sloane’s accumulation in the old Manor House at Chelsea) was thought to render a division necessary, the line of severance was effected at the junction of what was natural and what was artificial; the former, including the products of what are commonly called “natural” forces, unaffected by man’s handiwork, or the impress of his mind. The departments which took cognisance of these were termed the “Natural History Departments,” and the new building to which they were removed the “Natural History Museum.”

It may be worth while to spend a few moments upon the consideration of the value of this division, as it is one which concerns the arrangement and administration of the majority of museums.

Though there is very much to be said for it, the objection has been raised that it cuts man himself in two. The illustrations of man’s bodily structure are undoubtedly subjects for the zoologist. The subtle gradations of form, proportion, and colour which distinguish the different races of men, can only be appreciated by one with the education of an anatomist, and whose eye has been trained to estimate the value of such characters in discriminating the variations of animal forms. The subjects for comparison required for this branch of research must therefore be looked for in the zoological collections.

But the comparatively new science of “anthropology” embraces not only man’s physical structure; it includes his mental development, his manners, customs, traditions, and languages. The illustrations of his works of art, domestic utensils, and weapons of war are essential parts of its study. In fact it is impossible to say where it ends. It includes all that man is or ever has been, all that he has ever done. No definite line can be drawn between the rudest flint weapon and the most exquisitely finished instrument of destruction which has ever been turned out from the manufactory at Elswick, between the rough representation of a mammoth, carved by one of its contemporary men on a portion of its own tusk, and the most admirable production of a Landseer. An anthropological collection, to be logical, must include all that is in not only the old British Museum but the South Kensington Museum and the National Gallery. The notion of an anthropology which considers savages and prehistoric people as apart from the rest of mankind may, in the limitations of human powers, have certain conveniences, but it is utterly unscientific and loses sight of the great value of the study in tracing the gradual growth of our existing complex systems and customs from the primitive ways of our progenitors.

On the other hand, the division first indicated is as perfectly definite, logical, and scientific as any such division can be. That there are many inconveniences attending wide local disjunctions of the collections containing subjects so distinct yet so nearly allied as physical and psychical anthropology must be fully admitted; but these could only have been overcome by embracing in one grand institution the various national collections illustrating the different branches of science and art, placed in such order and juxtaposition that their mutual relations might be apparent, and the resources of each might be brought to bear upon the elucidation of all the others--an ideal institution, such as the world has not yet seen, but into which the old British Museum might at one time have been developed.

A purely “Natural History Museum” will then embrace a collection of objects illustrating the natural productions of the earth, and in its widest and truest sense should include, as far as they can be illustrated by museum specimens, all the sciences which deal with natural phenomena. It has only been the difficulties, real or imaginary, in illustrating them which have excluded such subjects as astronomy, physics, chemistry, and physiology from occupying departments in our National Natural History Museum, while allowing the introduction of their sister sciences, mineralogy, geology, botany, and zoology.

Though the experimental sciences and those which deal with the laws which govern the universe, rather than with the materials of which it is composed, have not hitherto greatly called forth the collector’s instinct, or depended upon museums for their illustration, yet the great advantages of collections of the various instruments by means of which these sciences are pursued, and of examples of the methods by which they are taught, are yearly becoming more manifest. Museums of scientific apparatus now form portions of every well-equipped educational establishment, and under the auspices of the Science and Art Department at South Kensington a national collection illustrating those branches of natural history science which have escaped recognition in the British Museum is assuming a magnitude and importance which brings the question of properly housing and displaying it urgently to the front.

Anomalies such as these are certain to occur in the present almost infantile though rapidly progressive state of science. It may be taken for granted that no scientific institution of any complexity of organisation can be, except at the moment of its birth, abreast of the most modern views of the subject, especially in the dividing lines between, and the proportional representation of, the various branches of knowledge which it includes.

The necessity for subdivisions in the study of science is continually becoming more apparent as the knowledge of the details of each subject multiplies without corresponding increase in the power of the human mind to grasp and deal with them, and the dividing lines not only become sharper, but as knowledge advances they frequently require revision. It might be supposed that such revision would adjust itself to the direction taken by the natural development of the relations of the different branches of science, and the truer conceptions entertained of such relations. But this is not always so. Artificial barriers are continually being raised to keep these dividing lines in the direction in which they have once started. Difficulties of readjustment arise not only from the mechanical obstacles caused by the size and arrangements of the buildings and facilities for the allocation of various kinds of collections, but still more from the numerous personal interests which grow up and wind their meshes around such institutions. Professorships and curatorships of this or that division of science are founded and endowed, and their holders are usually tenacious either of encroachment upon or of any wide enlargement of the boundaries of the subject they have undertaken to teach or to illustrate; and in this way, more than any other, passing phases of scientific knowledge have become crystallised or fossilised in institutions where they might least have been expected. I may instance many European universities and great museums in which zoology and comparative anatomy are still held to be distinct subjects taught by different professors, and where, in consequence of the division of the collections under their charge, the skin of an animal, illustrating its zoology, and its skeleton and teeth, illustrating its anatomy, must be looked for in different and perhaps remotely placed buildings.

For the perpetuation of the unfortunate separation of palæontology from biology, which is so clearly a survival of an ancient condition of scientific culture, and for the maintenance in its integrity of the heterogeneous compound of sciences which we now call “geology,” the faulty organisation of our museums is in a great measure responsible. The more their rearrangement can be made to overstep and break down the abrupt line of demarcation which is still almost universally drawn between beings which live now and those which have lived in past times, so deeply rooted in the popular mind and so hard to eradicate even from that of the scientific student, the better it will be for the progress of sound biological knowledge.

But it is not of the removal of such great anomalies and inconsistencies, which, when they have once grown up, require heroic methods to set them right, but rather of certain minor defects in the organisation of almost all existing museums which are well within the capacity of comparatively modest administrative means to remedy, that I have now to speak.

That great improvements have been lately effected in many respects in some of the museums in this country, on the Continent, and especially in America, no one can deny. The subject, as I have already indicated, is exciting the attention of those who have the direction of them, and even awakening interest in the mind of the general public. It is in the hope of in some measure helping on or guiding this movement that I have ventured on the remarks which follow.

The first consideration in establishing a museum, large or small, either in a town, institution, society, or school, is that it should have some definite object or purpose to fulfil; and the next is that means should be forthcoming not only to establish but also to maintain the museum in a suitable manner to fulfil that purpose. Some persons are enthusiastic enough to think that a museum is in itself so good an object that they have only to provide a building and cases and a certain number of specimens, no matter exactly what, to fill them, and then the thing is done; whereas the truth is the work has only then begun. What a museum really depends upon for its success and usefulness is not its building, not its cases, not even its specimens, but its curator. He and his staff are the life and soul of the institution, upon whom its whole value depends; and yet in many--I may say most of our museums--they are the last to be thought of. The care, the preservation, the naming of the specimens are either left to voluntary effort--excellent often for special collections and for a limited time, but never to be depended on as a permanent arrangement,--or a grievously undersalaried and consequently uneducated official is expected to keep in order, to clean, dust, arrange, name, and display in a manner which will contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge, collections ranging in extent over almost every branch of human learning, from the contents of an ancient British barrow to the last discovered bird of paradise from New Guinea.

Valuable specimens not unfrequently find their way into museums thus managed. Their public-spirited owners fondly imagine that they will be preserved and made of use to the world if once given to such an institution. Their fate is, unfortunately, far otherwise. Dirty, neglected, without label, their identity lost, they are often finally devoured by insects or cleared away to make room on the crowded shelves for the new donation of some fresh patron of the institution. It would be far better that such museums should never be founded. They are traps into which precious--sometimes priceless--objects fall only to be destroyed; and, what is still worse, they bring discredit on all similar institutions, make the very name of museum a byword and a reproach, hindering instead of advancing the recognition of their value as agents in the great educational movement of the age.

A museum is like a living organism--it requires continual and tender care. It must grow, or it will perish; and the cost and labour required to maintain it in a state of vitality is not yet by any means fully realised or provided for, either in our great national establishments or in our smaller local institutions.

Often as it has been said, it cannot be too often repeated that the real objects of forming collections, of whatever kind (apart, of course, from the mere pleasure of acquisition--sometimes the only motive of private collectors), and which, although in very different degrees, and often without being recognised, underlie the organisation of all museums, are two, which are quite distinct, and sometimes even conflicting. The first is to advance or increase the knowledge of some given subject. This is generally the motive of the individual collector, whose experience shows him the vast assistance in forming definite ideas in any line of research in which he may be occupied that may be derived from having the materials for its study at his own command, to hold and to handle, to examine and compare, to take up and lay aside whenever the favourable moment to do so occurs. But unless his subject is a very limited one, or his means the reverse, he soon finds the necessity of consulting collections based on a larger scale than his own. Very few people have any idea of the multiplicity of specimens required for the purpose of working out many of the simplest problems concerning the life-history of animals or plants. The naturalist has frequently to ransack all the museums, both public and private, of Europe and America in the endeavour to compose a monograph of a single common genus, or even species, that shall include all questions of its variation, changes in different seasons and under different climates and conditions of existence, and the distribution in space and time of all its modifications. He often has to confess at the end that he has been baffled in his research for want of the requisite materials for such an undertaking. Of course this ought not to be, and the time will come when it will not be, but that time is very far off yet.

We all know the old saying that the craving for riches grows as the wealth itself increases. Something similar is true of scientific collections brought together for the purpose of advancing knowledge. The larger they are the more their deficiencies seem to become conspicuous; the more desirous we are to fill up the gaps which provokingly interfere with our extracting from them the complete story they have to tell.

Such collections are, however, only for the advanced student, the man who has already become acquainted with the elements of his science and is in a position, by his knowledge, by his training, and by his observing and reasoning capacity, to take advantage of such material to carry on the subject to a point beyond that at which he takes it up.

But there is another and a far larger class to whom museums are or should be a powerful means of aid in acquiring knowledge. Among such those who are commencing more serious studies may be included; but I especially refer to the much more numerous class, and one which it may be hoped will year by year bear a greater relative proportion to the general population of the country, who, without having the time, the opportunities, or the abilities to make a profound study of any branch of science, yet take a general interest in its progress, and wish to possess some knowledge of the world around them and of the principal facts ascertained with regard to it, or at least some portions of it. For such persons museums may be, when well organised and arranged, of benefit to a degree that at present can scarcely be realised.

To diffuse knowledge among persons of this class is the second of the two purposes of museums of which I have spoken.

I believe that the main cause of what may be fairly termed the failure of the majority of museums--especially museums of natural history--to perform the functions that might be legitimately expected of them is that they nearly always confound together the two distinct objects which they may fulfil, and by attempting to combine both in the same exhibition practically accomplish neither.

In accordance with which of those two objects, which may be briefly called _research_ and _instruction_, is the main end of the museum, so should the whole be primarily arranged; and in accordance with the object for which each specimen is required, so should it be treated.

The specimens kept for research, for advancement of knowledge, for careful investigations in structure and development, or for showing the minute distinctions which must be studied in working out the problems connected with variations of species according to age, sex, season, or locality; for fixing the limits of geographical distribution, or determining the range in geological time, must be not only exceedingly numerous (so numerous, indeed, that it is almost impossible to put a limit on what may be required for such purposes), but they must also be kept under such conditions as to admit of ready and close examination and comparison.

If the whole of the specimens really required for enlarging the boundaries of zoological or botanical science were to be displayed in such a manner that each one could be distinctly seen by any visitor sauntering through the public galleries of a museum, the vastness and expense of the institution would be out of all proportion to its utility; the specimens themselves would be quite inaccessible to the examination of all those capable of deriving instruction from them, and, owing to the injurious effects of continued exposure to light upon the greater number of preserved natural objects, would ultimately lose a large part of their permanent value. Collections of this kind must, in fact, be treated as the books in a library, and be used only for consultation and reference by those who are able to read and appreciate their contents. To demand, as has been ignorantly done, that all the specimens belonging to our national museums, for instance, should be displayed in cases in the public galleries, would be equivalent to asking that every book in a library, instead of being shut up and arranged on shelves for consultation when required, should have every single page framed and glazed and hung on the walls, so that the humblest visitor as he passes along the galleries has only to open his eyes and revel in the wealth of literature of all ages and all countries, without so much as applying to a custodian to open a case. Such an arrangement is perfectly conceivable. The idea from some points of view is magnificent, almost sublime. But imagine the space required for such an arrangement of the national library of books, or, indeed, of any of the smallest local libraries; imagine the inconvenience to the real student, the disadvantages which he would be under in reading the pages of any work fixed in an immovable position beneath a glass case; think of the enormous distances he would often have to traverse to compare a reference or verify a quotation, and the idea of sublimity soon gives place to its usual antithesis. The attempt to display every bird, every insect, shell, or plant, which is or ought to be in any of our great museums of reference would produce an exactly similar result.

In the arrangement of collections designed for research, which, of course, will contain all those precious specimens called “types,” which must be appealed to through all time to determine the species to which a name was originally given, the principal points to be aimed at are--the preservation of the objects from all influences deleterious to them, especially dust, light, and damp; their absolutely correct identification, and record of every circumstance that need be known of their history; their classification and storage in such a manner that each one can be found without difficulty or loss of time; and, both on account of expense as well as convenience of access, they should be made to occupy as small a space as is compatible with these requirements. They should be kept in rooms provided with suitable tables and good light for their examination, and within reach of the necessary books of reference on the particular subjects which the specimens illustrate. Furthermore, the rooms should be so situated that the officers of the museum, without too great hindrance to their own work, can be at hand for occasional assistance and supervision of the student, and if collections of research and exhibited specimens are contained in one building, it is obvious that the closer the contiguity in which those of any particular group are placed the greater will be the convenience both of students and curators, for in very few establishments will it be possible to form each series on such a scale as to be entirely independent of the other.

On the other hand, in a collection arranged for the instruction of the general visitor, the conditions under which the specimens are kept should be totally different. In the first place, their numbers must be strictly limited, according to the nature of the subject to be illustrated and the space available. None must be placed too high or too low for ready examination. There must be no crowding of specimens one behind the other, every one being perfectly and distinctly seen, and with a clear space around it. Imagine a picture-gallery with half the pictures on the walls partially or entirely concealed by others hung in front of them; the idea seems preposterous, and yet this is the approved arrangement of specimens in most public museums. If an object is worth putting into a gallery at all, it is worth such a position as will enable it to be seen. Every specimen exhibited should be good of its kind, and all available skill and care should be spent upon its preservation and rendering it capable of teaching the lesson it is intended to convey. And here I cannot refrain from saying a word upon the sadly-neglected art of taxidermy, which continues to fill the cases of most of our museums with wretched and repulsive caricatures of mammals and birds, out of all natural proportions, shrunken here and bloated there, and in attitudes absolutely impossible for the creature to have assumed while alive. Happily there may be seen occasionally, especially where amateurs of artistic taste and good knowledge of natural history have devoted themselves to the subject, examples enough to show that an animal can be converted after death, by a proper application of taxidermy, into a real lifelike representation of the original, perfect in form, proportions, and attitude, and almost, if not quite, as valuable for conveying information on these points as the living creature itself. The fact is that taxidermy is an art resembling that of the painter, or rather the sculptor; it requires natural genius as well as great cultivation, and it can never be permanently improved until we have abandoned the present conventional low standard and low payment for “bird-stuffing,” which is utterly inadequate to induce any man of capacity to devote himself to it as a profession.

To return from this digression, every specimen exhibited should have its definite purpose, and no absolute duplicate should on any account be permitted. Above all, the purpose 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. A well-arranged educational museum has been defined as a collection of instructive labels illustrated by well-selected specimens.

What is, or should be, the order of events in arranging a portion of a public museum? Not, certainly, as too often happens now, bringing a number of specimens together almost by haphazard, and cramming them as closely as possible in a case far too small to hold them, and with little reference to their order or to the possibility of their being distinctly seen. First, as I said before, you must have your curator. He must carefully consider the object of the museum, the class and capacities of the persons for whose instruction it is founded, and the space available to carry out this object. He will then divide the subject to be illustrated into groups, and consider their relative proportions, according to which he will plan out the space. Large labels will next be prepared for the principal headings, as the chapters of a book, and smaller ones for the various subdivisions. Certain propositions to be illustrated, either in the structure, classification, geographical distribution, geological position, habits, or evolution of the subjects dealt with, will be laid down and reduced to definite and concise language. Lastly will come the illustrative specimens, each of which as procured and prepared will fall into its appropriate place. As it is not always easy to obtain these at the time that they are wanted, gaps will often have to be left, but these, if properly utilised by drawings or labels, may be made nearly as useful as if occupied by the actual specimens.

A public exhibition which is intended to be instructive and interesting must never be crowded. There is, indeed, no reason why it ever should be. Every such exhibition, whether on a large or small scale, can only contain a representative series of specimens, selected with a view to the needs of the particular class of persons who are likely to visit the gallery, and the number of specimens exhibited should be adapted to the space available. There is, therefore, rarely any excuse for filling it up in such a manner as to interfere with the full view of every specimen shown. A crowded gallery, except in some very exceptional circumstances, at once condemns the curator, as the remedy is generally in his own hands. In order to avoid it he has nothing to do but sternly to eliminate all the less important specimens. If any of these possess features of historical or scientific interest demanding their permanent preservation, they should be kept in the reserve collections; if otherwise, they should not be kept at all.

The ideal public museums of the future will, however, require far more exhibition space than has hitherto been allowed; for though the number of specimens shown may be fewer than is often thought necessary now, each will require more room if the conditions above described are carried out, and especially if it is thought desirable to show it in such a manner as to enable the visitor to realise something of the wonderful complexity of the adaptations which bring each species into harmonious relation with its surrounding conditions. Artistic reproductions of natural environments, illustrations of protective resemblances, or of special modes of life, all require much room for their display. This method of exhibition, wherever faithfully carried out, is, however, proving both instructive and attractive, and will doubtless be greatly extended.

Guide-books and catalogues are useful adjuncts, as being adapted to convey fuller information than labels, and as they can be taken away for study during the intervals of visits to the museum, but they can never supersede the use of labels. Any one who is in the habit of visiting picture-galleries where the names of the artists and the subject are affixed to the frame, and others in which the information has in each case to be sought by reference to a catalogue, must appreciate the vast superiority in comfort and time-saving of the former plan.

Acting upon such principles as these, every public gallery of a museum, whether the splendid saloon of a national institution, or the humble room containing the local collection of a village club, can be made a centre of instruction, and will offer interests and attractions which will be looked for in vain in the majority of such institutions at the present time.

One of the best illustrations of the different treatment of collections intended for research or advancement of knowledge, and for popular instruction or diffusion of knowledge, is now to be seen in Kew Gardens, where the admirably constructed and arranged herbarium answers the first purpose, and the public museums of economic botany the second. A similar distinction is carried out in the collections of systematic botany in the natural history branch of the British Museum, with the additional advantage of close contiguity; indeed, as an example of a scheme of good museum arrangement (although not perfect yet in details) I cannot do better than refer to the upper story of the east wing of that institution. The same principles, little regarded in former times in this country, and still unknown in some of the largest continental museums, are gradually pervading every department of the institution, which, from its national character, its metropolitan position, and exceptional resources, ought to illustrate in perfection the ideal of a natural-history museum. In fact, it is only in a national institution that an exhaustive research collection in all branches of natural history, in which the specialist of every group can find his own subject fully illustrated, can or ought to be attempted.

As the actual comparison of specimen with specimen is the basis of zoological and botanical research, and as work done with imperfect materials is necessarily imperfect in itself, it is far the wisest policy to concentrate in a few great central institutions, the number and situation of which must be determined by the population and the resources of the country, all the collections, especially those containing specimens already alluded to as so dear to the systematic naturalist, known as author’s “types,” required for original investigations. It is far more advantageous to the investigator to go to such a collection and take up his temporary abode there, while his research is being carried out, with all the material required at his hand at once, than to travel from place to place and pick up piecemeal the information he requires, without opportunity of direct comparison of specimens.

I do not say that collections for special study, and even original research, should not, under particular circumstances and limitations, be formed at museums other than central national institutions, or that nothing should be retained in provincial museums but what is of a directly educational or elementary nature. A local collection, illustrating the fauna and flora of the district, should be part of every such museum; and this may be carried to almost any amount of detail, and therefore in many cases it would be very unadvisable to exhibit the whole of it. A selection of the most important objects may be shown under the conditions described above, and the remainder carefully preserved in cabinets for the study of specialists.

It is also very desirable in all museums, in order that the exhibited series should be as little disturbed as possible in arrangement, and be always available for the purpose for which it is intended, that there should be, for the use of teachers and students, a supplementary set of common objects, which, if injured, could be easily replaced. It must not be forgotten that the zealous investigator and the conscientious curator are often the direst antagonists: the one endeavours to get all the knowledge he can out of a specimen, regardless of its ultimate fate, and even if his own eyes alone have the advantage of it; the other is content if a limited portion only is seen, provided that can be seen by every one both now and hereafter.

Such, then, is the primary principle which ought to underlie the arrangement of all museums--the distinct separation of the two objects for which collections are made; the publicly exhibited collection being never a store-room or magazine, but only such as the ordinary visitor can understand and profit by, and the collection for students being so arranged as to afford every facility for examination and research. The improvements that can be made in detail in both departments are endless, and to enter further into their consideration would lead me far beyond the limits of this address. Happily, as I said before, the subject is receiving much attention.

I would willingly dwell longer upon it--indeed I feel that I have only been able to touch slightly and superficially upon many questions of practical interest, well worthy of more detailed consideration; but time warns me that I must be bringing this discourse to a close, and I have still said nothing in reference to subjects upon which you may expect some words on this occasion. I mean those great problems concerning the laws which regulate the evolution of organic beings, problems which agitate the minds of all biologists of the present day, and the solution of which is watched with keen interest by a far wider circle--a circle, in fact, coincident with the intelligence and education of the world. Several communications connected with these problems will be brought before the sectional meetings during the next few days, and we shall have the advantage of hearing them discussed by some of those who, by virtue of their special attention to and full knowledge of these subjects, are most competent to speak with authority. It is therefore for me rather delicate ground to tread upon, especially at the close of a discourse mainly devoted to another question. I will, however, briefly point out the nature of the problems and the lines which the endeavour to solve them will probably take, without attempting to anticipate the details which you will doubtless hear most fully and ably stated elsewhere.

I think I may safely premise that few, if any, original workers at any branch of biology appear now to entertain serious doubt about the general truth of the doctrine that all existing forms of life have been derived from other forms by a natural process of descent with modification, and it is generally acknowledged that to the records of the past history of life upon the earth we must look for the actual confirmation of the truth of a doctrine which accords so strongly with all we know of the present history of living beings.

Professor Huxley wrote in 1875: “The only perfectly safe foundation for the doctrine of evolution lies in the historical, or rather archæological, evidence that particular organisms have arisen by the gradual modification of their predecessors, which is furnished by fossil remains. That evidence is daily increasing in amount and in weight, and it is to be hoped that the comparisons of the actual pedigree of these organisms with the phenomena of their development may furnish some criterion by which the validity of phylogenic conclusions deduced from the facts of embryology alone may be satisfactorily tested.”

Palæontology, however, as we all know, reveals her secrets with no open hand. How can we be reminded of this more forcibly than by the discovery announced scarcely three months ago by Professor Marsh of numerous mammalian remains from formations of the Cretaceous period, the absence of which had so long been a source of difficulty to all zoologists? What vistas does this discovery open of future possibilities, and what thorough discredit, if any were needed, does it throw on the value of negative evidence in such matters! Bearing fully in mind the necessary imperfection of the record we have to deal with, I think that no one taking an impartial survey of the recent progress of palæontological discovery can doubt that the evidence in favour of a gradual modification of living forms is still steadily increasing. Any regular progressive series of changes of structure coinciding with changes in time can of course only be expected to be preserved and to come again before our eyes under such a favourable combination of circumstances as must be of most rare occurrence; but the links, more or less perfect, of many such series are continually being revealed, and the discovery of a single intermediate form is often of immense interest as indicating the path along which the modification from one apparently distinct form to another may have taken place.

Though palæontology may be appealed to in support of the conclusion that modifications have taken place as time advanced, it can scarcely afford any help in solving the more difficult problems which still remain as to the methods by which the changes have been brought about.

Ever since the publication of what has been truly described as the “creation of modern natural history,” Darwin’s work on the _Origin of Species_, there has been no little controversy as to how far all the modifications of living forms can be accounted for by the principle of natural selection or preservation of variations best adapted for their surrounding conditions, or whether any, and if so what, other factors have taken part in the process of organic evolution.

It certainly cannot be said that in these later times the controversy has ended. Indeed those who are acquainted with scientific literature must know that notes struck at the last annual meeting of this Association produced a series of reverberations the echoes of which have hardly yet died away.

Within the last few months also two important works have appeared in our country, which have placed in an accessible and popular form many of the data upon which the most prevalent views on the subject are based.

The first is _Darwinism: an Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection, with some of its Applications_, by Alfred Russel Wallace. No one could be found so competent to give such an exposition of the theory as one who was, simultaneously with Darwin, its independent originator, but who, by the title he has chosen, no less than by the contents of the book, has, with rare modesty and self-abnegation, transferred to his fellow-labourer all the merit of the discovery of what he evidently looks upon as a principle of overwhelming importance in the economy of nature; “supreme,” indeed, he says, “to an extent which even Darwin himself hesitated to claim for it.”

The other work I refer to is the English translation of the remarkable _Essays upon Heredity and Kindred Biological Problems_, by Dr. August Weismann, published at the Oxford Clarendon Press, in which is fully discussed the very important but still open question--a question which was brought into prominence at our meeting at Manchester two years ago--of the transmission or non-transmission to the offspring of characters acquired during the lifetime of the parent.

It is generally recognised that it is one of the main elements of Darwin’s, as well as of every other theory of evolution, that there is in every individual organic being an innate tendency to vary from the standard of its predecessors, but that this tendency is usually kept under the sternest control by the opposite tendency to resemble them--a force to which the terms “heredity” and “atavism” are applied. The causes of this initial tendency to vary, as well as those of its limits and prevailing direction, and the circumstances which favour its occasional bursting through the constraining principle of heredity, offer an endless field for speculation. Though several theories of variation have been suggested, I think that no one would venture to say we have passed beyond the threshold of knowledge of the subject at present.

Taking for granted, however, as we all do, that this tendency to individual variation exists, then comes the question, What are the agents by which, when it has asserted itself, it is controlled or directed in such a manner as to produce the permanent or apparently permanent modifications of organic structures which we see around us? Is “survival of the fittest” or preservation by natural selection of those variations best adapted for their surrounding conditions (the essentially Darwinian or still more essentially Wallacian doctrine) the sole or even the chief of these agents? Can isolation, or the revived Lamarckian view of the direct action of the environment, or the effects of use or disuse accumulating through generations, either singly or combined, account for all? or is it necessary to invoke the aid of any of the numerous subsidiary methods of selection which have been suggested as factors in bringing about the great result?

Any one who has closely followed these discussions, especially those bearing most directly upon what is generally regarded as the most important factor of evolution--natural selection, or “survival of the fittest”--cannot fail to have noticed the appeal constantly made to the advantage, the utility, or otherwise of special organs or modifications of organs or structures to their possessors. Those who have convinced themselves of the universal application of the doctrine of natural selection hold that every particular structure or modification of structure must be of utility to the animal or plant in which it occurs, or to some ancestor of that animal or plant, otherwise it could not have come into existence; the only reservation being for cases which are explained by the principle which Darwin called “correlation of growth.” Thus the extreme natural selectionists and the old-fashioned school of teleologists are so far in agreement.

On the other hand, it is held by some that numerous structures and modifications of structures are met with in nature which are manifestly useless; it is even confidently stated that there are many which are positively injurious to their possessor, and therefore could not possibly have resulted from the action of natural selection of favourable variations. Organs or modifications when in an incipient condition are especially quoted as bearing upon this difficulty. But here, it seems to me, we are continually appealing to a criterion by which to test our theories of which we know far too little, and this (though often relied upon as the strongest) is, in reality, the weakest point of the whole discussion.

Of the variations of the form and structure of organic bodies we are beginning to know something. Our museums, when more complete and better organised, will teach us much on this branch of the subject. They will show us the infinite and wonderful and apparently capricious modifications of form, colour, and of texture to which every most minute portion of the organisation of the innumerable creatures which people the earth is subject. They will show us examples of marvellously complicated and delicate arrangements of organs and tissues in many of what we consider as almost the lowest and most imperfectly organised groups of beings with which we are acquainted. But as to the use of all these structures and modifications in the economy of the creatures that possess them, we know, I may almost say, nothing, and our museums will never teach us these things. If time permitted I might give numerous examples in the most familiar of all animals, whose habits and actions are matters of daily observation, with whose life-history we are as well acquainted almost as we are with our own, of structures the purposes of which are still most doubtful. There are many such even in the composition of our own bodies. How, then, can we expect to answer such questions when they relate to animals known to us only by dead specimens, or by the most transient glimpses of the living in a state of nature, or when kept under the most unnatural conditions in confinement? And yet this is actually the state of our knowledge of the vast majority of the myriads of living beings which inhabit the earth. How can we, with our limited powers of observation and limited capacity of imagination, venture to pronounce an opinion as to the fitness or unfitness for its complex surroundings of some peculiar modification of structure found in some strange animal dredged up from the abysses of the ocean, or which passes its life in the dim seclusion of some tropical forest, and into the essential conditions of whose existence we have at present no possible means of putting ourselves in any sort of relation?

How true it is that, as Sir John Lubbock says, “we find in animals complex organs of sense richly supplied with nerves, but the functions of which we are as yet powerless to explain. There may be fifty other senses as different from ours as sound is from sight; and even within the boundaries of our own senses there may be endless sounds which we cannot hear, and colours as different as red from green of which we have no conception. These and a thousand other questions remain for solution. The familiar world which surrounds us may be a totally different place to other animals. To them it may be full of music which we cannot hear, of colour which we cannot see, of sensations which we cannot conceive.”

The fact is that nearly all attempts to assign purposes to the varied structures of animals are the merest guesses and assumptions. The writers on natural history of the early part of the present century, who “for every why must have a wherefore,” abound in these guesses, which wider knowledge shows to be untenable. Many of the arguments for or against natural selection, based upon the assumed utility or equally assumed uselessness of animal and vegetable structures, have nothing more to recommend them. In fact, to say that any part of the organisation of an animal or plant, or any habit or instinct with which it is endowed, is useless, or even injurious, seems to me an assumption which, in our present state of knowledge, we are not warranted in making. The time may come when we shall have more light, but infinite patience and infinite labour are required before we shall be in a position to speak dogmatically on these mysteries of nature--labour not only in museums, laboratories, and dissecting-rooms, but in the homes and haunts of the animals themselves, watching and noting their ways amid their natural surroundings, by which means alone we can endeavour to penetrate the secrets of their life-history. But until that time comes, though we may not be quite tempted to echo the despairing cry of the poet, “Behold, we know not anything,” a frank confession of ignorance is the most straightforward, indeed the only honest position we can assume when questioned on these subjects.

However much we may be convinced of the supreme value of scientific methods of observation and of reasoning, both as mental training of the individual and in the elucidation of truth and advancement of knowledge generally, it is impossible to be blind to the fact that we who are engaged with the investigation of those subjects which are commonly accepted as belonging to the domain of physical science are unfortunately not always, by virtue of being so occupied, possessed of that most precious gift, “a right judgment in all things.”

No one intimately acquainted with the laborious and wavering steps of scientific progress (I can answer at least for one branch of it) can look upon that progress with a perfect feeling of satisfaction.

Can it be said of any of us that our observations are always accurate, the materials on which they are based always sufficient, our reasoning always sound, our conclusions always legitimate? Is there any subject, however limited, of which our knowledge can be said to have reached finality?

Or if it happens to any of us as to

A man who looks at glass On it may stay his eye, Or if he pleases through it pass And then the heavens espy,

are not those heavens which are beyond the immediate objects of our observation coloured by our prejudices, pre-possessions, emotions, or imagination, as often as they are defined by any profound insight into the depth of nature’s laws? In most of these questions an open mind and a suspended judgment appear to me the true scientific position, whichever way our inclinations may lead us.

For myself, I must own that when I endeavour to look beyond the glass, and frame some idea of the plan upon which all the diversity in the organic world has been brought about, I see the strongest grounds for the belief, difficult as it sometimes is in the face of the strange, incomprehensible, apparent defects in structure, and the far stranger, weird ruthless savagery of habit, often brought to light by the study of the ways of living creatures, that natural selection, or survival of the fittest, has, among other agencies, played a most important part in the production of the present condition of the organic world, and that it is a universally acting and beneficent force continually tending towards the perfection of the individual, of the race, and of the whole living world.

I can even go farther and allow my dream still thus to run:

Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill....

That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life shall be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete.