ESSAYS ON MUSEUMS
[Illustration: colophon]
ESSAYS ON MUSEUMS
AND OTHER SUBJECTS CONNECTED
WITH NATURAL HISTORY
BY
SIR WILLIAM HENRY FLOWER, K.C.B.
D.C.L., D.Sc., LL.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., F.R.C.S., P.Z.S.
CORRESPONDENT OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, ETC.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1898
_All rights reserved_
TO HER
WHO FOR FORTY YEARS
HAS BEEN MY NEVER-FAILING COUNSELLOR AND SUPPORT
IN ALL DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES
THIS COLLECTION OF FUGITIVE THOUGHTS
UPON SUBJECTS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED
WITH THE GREATER PART OF OUR JOINT LIFE’S WORK
IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED
PREFACE
Having lately, during an enforced period of restraint from active
occupation, had leisure to look back upon the events of a somewhat busy
life, it occurred to me that besides the administration, in succession,
of two large public museums, and some original scientific investigation,
the results of which can be of interest only to the very few, there have
been occasions which have involved a contact with wider and more varied
circles.
Though the records of these occasions have doubtless been mainly of
passing or local concern, it is possible that something may be found
among them worth placing in a more accessible and permanent form than in
the scattered journals or pamphlets in which they can only be found at
present.
Such of these essays and addresses as seemed suitable for republication
in the present collection mainly group themselves under three distinct
branches of the many into which the intellectual and educational
activity of our age is manifested.
1. Those which are here placed first are, more closely than any others,
connected with the practical work of my life,--the advancement of
scientific knowledge through the development of museums. Here I cannot
refrain from expressing my deep sense of the loss this cause has
recently sustained by the premature death of Dr. Brown Goode, Director
of the United States National Museum. Fortunately for science he was
able to formulate his latest views “On the Principles of Museum
Administration” in an elaborate paper contributed to the
Newcastle-on-Tyne meeting of the “Museums Association” and published in
the report for 1895.
2. The essays on general Biological questions treat very considerably of
a subject of even wider interest,--the permanence or transmutation of
species, especially in its bearing upon the doctrine of evolution. It
might be thought that nothing more need now be said upon this subject,
but it is certain that there is still much misapprehension in relation
to it; and it may be interesting to some to know the arguments which
have been brought forward at various stages of the great controversy by
one whose scientific life began before the publication of the _Origin of
Species_, and to whom it has fallen to present the principal problems
connected with it in various aspects and to various classes of
intelligence and education. If some of the essays may not be upon the
level of our present knowledge as to facts, the principal lines of
thought which run through them are not materially changed by the
additions made to that knowledge, and so it has been thought best to
leave them as originally written, except for an occasional verbal
alteration. The dates at which they were first published should, in all
cases, be carried in mind. Sometimes a repetition of ideas or even of
verbal expressions found elsewhere may be met with, but these have been
allowed to stand, so that each essay may be complete in itself.
3. Upon the third subject, the main point of which is the advocacy of a
more systematic study of Anthropology in this country, there has been,
as it seems to me, less advance than in either of the other two; and in
putting forth its claims for greater recognition I felt for a long time
as one crying in the wilderness. I am glad, therefore, to have the
opportunity of bringing much which has been said in some of these
addresses once more before the notice of those who may have
opportunities of forwarding the work, and also acknowledging various
recent signs of progress, among which may be mentioned the
establishment of a Professorship of this subject by the University of
Oxford.
4. The short sketches of some of the personal characteristics of the
contemporary naturalists of our country who have been most prominent in
advancing the branches of science to which the essays of the first three
sections are devoted form a not unnatural sequel to them.
In conclusion, my best thanks are offered to the various institutions
and persons who have kindly given permission for the republication of
the essays, the source of which is in every case acknowledged; but I may
especially mention the Council of the Royal Society in respect to the
biographical notices from their Proceedings; the Council of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science, for various addresses
published in the reports of their meetings; the Council of the Royal
Institution and of the Royal Colonial Institute, for lectures given
before them and published in their Proceedings; the proprietors of the
_North American Review_ and of _Chambers’s Journal_, for articles
contributed originally to those periodicals; and Messrs. A. and C. Black
and Messrs. Macmillan and Co. Ltd., for illustrations of the articles on
“Whales,” and on “Fashion in Deformity.”
W. H. F.
26 STANHOPE GARDENS, LONDON,
_Easter 1898_.
CONTENTS
MUSEUMS
ESSAY PAGE
1. MUSEUM ORGANISATION.--Presidential Address to the British Association
for the Advancement of Science. Newcastle-on-Tyne Meeting, 11th
September 1889 1
Choice of subject--Museums of the Ancients and of the Middle Ages--The
terms Natural History and Naturalist--Definition of a Natural
History Museum--Subdivisions of the sciences represented in
a Natural History Museum--Objects of museums--Research and
instruction--Methods of arranging specimens for study and for public
exhibition--Labels--Guide-books and catalogues--Biological problems of
the day--Evolution of organic beings--Natural Selection--Survival of the
Fittest--Difficulties arising from the imperfection of our knowledge.
2. MODERN MUSEUMS. Presidential Address to the Museums Association.
London Meeting, 3rd July 1893 30
The Museums Association--Cost of museums--Qualifications and
remuneration of curators--Museum literature--The new Museum
idea--Separation of specimens required for the advancement of science
and for general instruction--The new Natural History Museums of London,
Paris, Vienna, and Berlin--American museums--Plan for a model National
Natural History Museum.
3. LOCAL MUSEUMS. From a Letter in support of the establishment of a
County Museum for Buckinghamshire (24th November 1891), and an Address
at the opening of the Perth Museum (29th November 1895) 54
Desirability of having museums in every county to preserve tangible
records of local history, customs, and natural history--Necessity of
provision for their permanent maintenance and for paid curators--Such
museums should be formed in connection with technical schools and free
libraries, and supported from the same sources.
4. SCHOOL MUSEUMS. Suggestions for the formation and arrangement of a
Museum of Natural History in connection with a Public School. _Nature_,
26th December 1889 58
Subjects best adapted for School Museums--Zoology, Botany, Mineralogy
and Geology--What kind of specimens are desirable--Every collection or
series should be kept perfectly distinct--A permanent curator necessary.
5. BOYS’ MUSEUMS. _Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal_, April
1897 63
Natural History an absorbing passion with many boys--Often a passing
phase, sometimes permanent--Natural History as a vocation--Love of
collecting--Value as a means of education--Hints to beginners in forming
museums--Personal experiences of the author.
6. THE BOOTH MUSEUM. Address at the opening of the Booth Museum,
Brighton. 3rd November 1890 70
Formation and object of the Museum--The art of Taxidermy--Observation of
bird life an unfailing source of pleasure, increasing with increase of
knowledge--Such museums promote this knowledge and add to human
happiness.
7. THE MUSEUM OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND. Presidential
Address to the Anatomical Section of the International Medical Congress.
London Meeting, 4th August 1881 74
John Hunter, the founder of the Museum--His collection purchased by
Government and placed in the custody of the Royal College of Surgeons
under certain conditions--Branches of Biology represented in the
Museum--Foundation and present condition of each section--Value of the
Museum to the surgical profession and the country--Its future
maintenance assured by the munificent bequest of Sir Erasmus Wilson.
GENERAL BIOLOGY
8. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE TO THE COURSE OF COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. Royal
College of Surgeons of England, 14th February 1870 97
The course intended to illustrate the Museum--John Hunter’s work as a
comparative anatomist--The Museum teaches morphology--The study of
morphology has led in succession to the ideas of (1) teleology or direct
adaptation to purpose; (2) type or common plan; (3) descent from a
common ancestor with modification, according to the great principle of
orderly evolution--Reception and gradual recognition of the last
hypothesis--Some objections to it answered--Explanation it
affords of anatomical structures, otherwise accounted for with
difficulty--Illustrations --Importance of discriminating essential or
fundamental from adaptive characters--Classification--Wider knowledge of
morphology the basis of an intelligent study of human anatomy.
9. RECENT ADVANCES IN NATURAL SCIENCE IN RELATION TO THE CHRISTIAN
FAITH. Paper read at the Church Congress. Reading Meeting, 2nd October
1883 123
The doctrine of evolution as applied to the life of organic
beings--Causes which led to the old belief in the fixity of species, and
to the change of opinion upon the subject, now almost universal--Effects
of this change of opinion upon our ideas in relation to Creation and the
Origin of Man.
10. A PRACTICAL LESSON FROM BIOLOGICAL STUDIES. Reply to Working Men’s
Address to the President of the British Association. Newcastle-on-Tyne,
14th September 1889 135
The survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence, one of the
main causes of progress.
11. PALÆONTOLOGICAL EVIDENCE OF GRADUAL MODIFICATION OF ANIMAL FORMS.
Lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, 25th April
1873 138
The history of the order _Ungulata_, or hoofed animals, as traced
through the Tertiary geological period, shows, as time advanced, a
gradual differentiation from more generalised to specialised forms--The
existing species are only survivors of large numbers which lived in
former times, and are now isolated by the extinction of the intermediate
forms.
12. A CENTURY’S PROGRESS IN ZOOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE. Presidential Address
in the Department of Zoology and Botany. British Association, Dublin
Meeting, 15th August 1878 153
The last edition of the _Systema Naturæ_, revised by Linnæus, was
published in 1766--The first portion of the work, devoted to the class
Mammalia, examined, and the progress made in the knowledge of each order
since that time reviewed--Observations on classification and zoological
nomenclature.
13. THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. Address at the General Meeting of
the Society, held in the Zoological Gardens, in celebration of the
Fiftieth Anniversary of Her Majesty’s reign, 16th June
1887 171
Foundation and growth of the
Society--Acclimatisation--Museum--Scientific
meetings--Publications--Lectures--Menagerie--Recent improvements.
14. WHALES AND WHALE FISHERIES. Lecture at the Royal Colonial Institute,
8th January 1895 185
Fishes and whales--General characters of the latter--Sperm
whale--Whalebone whales--Mode of capture--Whale fishery of the Basques
in the Middle Ages--Greenland whale fishery--Southern whale fisheries.
15. WHALES, PAST AND PRESENT, AND THEIR PROBABLE ORIGIN. Lecture at the
Royal Institution of Great Britain, 25th May 1883 209
Rudimentary organs giving indications of former conditions and
origin--Hair--Organs of sight and smell--Teeth--Nature and use of baleen
or whalebone--Fore-limbs--Hind Limbs--Geological history--All evidence
in favour of derivation from land animals, probably through forms
originally inhabiting fresh waters.
ANTHROPOLOGY
16. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY. British
Association, York Meeting, 1st September 1881 235
Importance of the study of race--Natural classification of man--Causes
of racial difference--Race a vague term--Craniometry --Necessity for
larger collections and more workers.
17. PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS TO THE SECTION OF ANTHROPOLOGY. British
Association, Oxford Meeting, 9th August 1894 249
History of the subject in England--Its scope and extent--Societies and
collections--Systematic teaching--Anthropometry--Value in
identification of individuals, especially as applied to
criminals--Finger-marks--Ethnographic survey--Anthropological notes and
queries--Our duty to posterity in collecting anthropological data.
18. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN SPECIES.
Presidential Address at the Anniversary Meeting of the Anthropological
Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 27th January 1885 274
The three principal types of man--1. Ethiopian, Negroid, Melanian, or
black--2. Mongolian, Xanthous or yellow--3. Caucasian or
white--Characteristics of each--Subdivisions--Position of the American
and Australian races.
19. THE PYGMY RACES OF MEN. Lecture at the Royal Institution of Great
Britain, 13th April 1888 290
Ancient belief in pygmy races--Size a characteristic of race--The
smallest existing races--Andaman Islanders--Other Negrito people in the
Eastern Archipelago and Mainland--Small races of Africa--Bushmen of
South Africa--Negrillos of the forest region of Central Africa--Akkas.
20. FASHION IN DEFORMITY. As illustrated in the customs of Barbarous and
Civilised Races, 1880 315
Origin of fashion--Fashion applied to domestic animals--Fashion in
hair--Finger-nails--Tattooing--Noses--Ears--Lips--Teeth--Head--Historic
references--Fashion in hands and feet--Action of the foot in
walking--Pointed toes--High heels--Tight lacing.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
21. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF PROFESSOR ROLLESTON. _Proceedings of the
Royal Society_, 1882 357
22. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF SIR RICHARD OWEN. _Proceedings of the Royal
Society_, 1894 363
23. REMINISCENCES OF PROFESSOR HUXLEY. _The North American Review_,
September 1895 381
24. EULOGIUM ON CHARLES DARWIN. Centenary Meeting of the Linnean
Society, 24th May 1888 390
MUSEUMS
I
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.