up in, and had acted throughout the greater part of his life upon, the
old idea; but it clearly expressed what was then beginning to be felt
by many who turned their unbiassed attention to the subject, and it is
the keynote of nearly all the museum reform of recent date. During the
long discussion which followed, the new idea found powerful advocates in
Huxley, Hooker, Sclater, Wallace, and others; but Owen, whose official
position made him the chief scientific adviser in the construction of
the new National Museum of Natural History, never became reconciled to
it, and, unfortunately, threw all the weight of his great authority into
the opposite scale.
The method of application of this principle depends entirely upon the
general nature of the museum, whether that of a nation, a town, a
school, or a society or institution established to cultivate some
definite branch of knowledge. It is mainly of national museums that I am
speaking at present, and it is only in national museums that the
fulfilment of both functions in fairly equal proportions can be
expected. In almost all other museums the diffusion of knowledge, or
popular education, will be the primary function; and if the true
principles of arrangement of such museums be once grasped, this is a
function which can be carried out upon the largest or the smallest, or
any intermediate scale, according to the means of the institution and
the requirements of the locality.
The collections for the advancement of science, on the other hand, are
of value mainly in proportion to their size, and no museum at present
existing has come anywhere near what is required for the exhaustive
study of natural history. If any one were now to endeavour to write a
complete monograph of any family in the animal kingdom, he would search
in vain for materials for doing so, not only in any one museum, but in
all the museums in the world put together.
Soon after the arrival in our National History Museum of the great and
carefully selected and labelled collection of Indian birds, presented by
Mr. A. O. Hume, containing upwards of 60,000 specimens, a well-known
ornithologist commenced the volumes devoted to birds in the excellent
series of manuals on the fauna of British India, edited by Mr. Blanford.
I am told that when he began the work, he was seen sitting at his table
rubbing his hands with delight at the prospect of success in his
labours guaranteed by such an unprecedented mass of material. But after
a few weeks the scene had changed. He was pacing up and down the room,
wringing the same hands in despair at the hopelessness of solving the
tangled problems of the variation according to age, sex, season, and
locality, the geographical distribution, and the limits and relationship
of any single species, owing to the absolutely insufficient number of
properly authenticated specimens at his command. Every zoologist will
recognise this as a scarcely exaggerated description of what he meets
with at every step of his work. Except, perhaps, for some special and
limited groups, which may be taken up in private collections, a national
museum alone can possibly attempt to bring together the materials
required for such exhaustive work; but it is undoubtedly the duty of all
national museums to endeavour to do this. There should be, in every
great nation, one establishment at least where such problems may be
attacked with some prospect of success, and the only conditions upon
which collections for this purpose can be maintained are, that they
should be so arranged as to occupy the smallest possible space
compatible with their proper preservation and convenience of access,
that they should be removed from all the deteriorating influences of
light and dust, and at the same time be perfectly available for the
closest examination by all those whose knowledge is sufficient to enable
them to extract any information from them. This means that they cannot
be _exhibited_ in the ordinary sense of the word; although it must not
be supposed that they are on that account in less need of orderly and
methodical arrangement. There is certainly a danger of collections which
are not generally exhibited becoming neglected, and degenerating into
the condition of mere accumulations of rubbish. Anything of the kind is
absolutely incompatible with the true requirements of specimens kept for
research. They specially need to be arranged in an orderly and
methodical manner, and to be thoroughly well catalogued and labelled, so
that each may be found directly it is wanted, and they must be
frequently inspected to see that they are free from moth or other
deleterious influence. The object of keeping them in this condition is,
indeed, that they should be preserved and not destroyed, as ultimately
happens to so many exhibited specimens. Much curatorial ingenuity may be
exercised in the methods of stowing and arranging such specimens to the
best advantage. The conditions of access to them will be precisely those
now accorded to books or manuscripts in a library, prints and drawings
in an art museum, or the records and public documents in the Rolls
Office or Somerset House.
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
resources of the country, all the collections which are required for the
prosecution of original research. These are especially those containing
author’s types or the actual specimens upon which species have been
established, and which must be appealed to through all time to settle
vexed questions of nomenclature. 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 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 the specimens one with another.
On the other hand, in local museums such collections are not only not
required, but add greatly to the trouble and expense of the maintenance
of the institution, without any compensating advantage. Here it will be
the duty of the curator to develop the side of the museum which is
educational and attractive to the general visitor and to all who wish to
obtain that knowledge which is the ambition of many cultivated persons
to acquire without becoming specialists or experts. The study of the
methods by which such museums may be made instructive and interesting
offers an endless field for experiment and discussion, and the various
problems connected with it are treated of not only in the literature I
have referred to, but in a more practical manner in many museums in
various parts of the world.
Without pursuing this question further at the present time, I should
like to repeat, from a previous address on the same subject,[4] certain
propositions which are fundamental in the arrangement of collections of
the class of which I am now speaking.
The number of the specimens must be strictly limited, according to the
nature of the subject to be illustrated and the space available. None
must be placed either 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. 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. Every specimen should have its definite
purpose, and no absolute duplicate should on any account be admitted.
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.
These are the principles of what may be called the New Museum idea as
applied to national museums of natural history. It is a remarkable
coincidence that since they were first enunciated, and during the time
of their discussion, but before they had met with anything like
universal acceptance, the four first nations of Europe almost
simultaneously erected in their respective capitals--London, Paris,
Vienna, and Berlin--entirely new buildings, on a costly, even palatial
scale, to receive the natural history collections, which in each case
had quite outgrown their previous insufficient accommodation. In the
construction of neither of these four edifices can the guardians of the
public purse be accused of want of liberality. Each building is a
monument in itself of the appreciation of the government of the country
of the value and interest of the natural history sciences. So far this
is most satisfactory. Now that each is more or less completed, at all
events for the present, and its contents in a fair way towards a
permanent arrangement, it may not be without interest on the present
occasion to give some comparative account of their salient features,
especially with a view to ascertain whether and to what extent their
construction and arrangement have complied with the requirements of the
modern idea of such institutions.
It may seem ungrateful to those who have so liberally responded to the
urgent representations of men of science by providing the means of
erecting these splendid buildings, to suggest that if they had all been
delayed for a few years the result might have been more satisfactory.
The effects of having been erected in what may be called a transitional
period of museum ideas is more or less evident in all, and all show
traces of compromise, or rather adaptation to new ideas of structures
avowedly designed for old ones. In none, perhaps, is this more
strikingly shown than in our own,--built, unfortunately, before any of
the others, and so without the advantages of the experience that might
have been gained from their successes or their shortcomings. Though a
building of acknowledged architectural beauty, and with some excellent
features, it cannot be taken structurally as a model museum, when the
test of adaptation to the purpose to which it is devoted is rigidly
applied. But to speak of its defects is an ungracious and uncongenial
task for me. If it were not taking me too far away from my present
subject I would rather speak of the admirable manner in which the staff
are endeavouring to carry out the new idea under somewhat
disadvantageous circumstances.
The new zoological museum in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris is a
glorification of the old idea pure and simple. It consists of one huge
hall, with galleries and some annexes, in which every specimen is
intended to be exhibited, more or less imperfectly, on alternate
periods, to students and to the general public. The building and cases
are very handsome in style, and there are endless rows of specimens of
all kinds neatly mounted in a uniform manner. There are no store-rooms,
no laboratories, no workrooms, connected with the building. These are
all in other more or less distant parts of the establishment, separated
from it in most cases by the whole breadth of the garden. Of course this
can only be looked upon as a temporary condition of affairs. Fortunately
there is still room on the site of the old museum behind the new
building, and if this is utilised by erecting upon it a commodious set
of workrooms, laboratories, rooms for reserve collections, and
administrative offices directly in connection with each other and with
the main building, which might then be emptied of a considerable portion
of its contents, an extremely good working museum may be evolved. But if
this space, as I believe was the original design, is used for the
further extension of the already disproportionately large public
galleries, the opportunity will be lost.
The new museums at Vienna, the one for natural history, the other for
art, placed one on each side of a handsome public garden in one of the
most important quarters of the city, exactly alike in size and
architectural features, are elegant buildings, and present many
excellent features of construction. The natural history museum, which
was alone finished when I visited Vienna three years ago, is a
quadrilateral structure with a central court, and consists of three
stories and a basement. Each story is divided into a number of
moderately-sized rooms, opening one into another, so that by passing
along in the same direction the visitor can make an inspection in
systematic order of all the collections arranged in each story,
returning to the point from whence he started; or, if need be, breaking
off at the middle, where a passage of communication runs across the
central court. An admirable feature in the design of this museum is,
that the public galleries of each story, lighted by windows from the
outside of the building, have on their inner side other rooms
communicating with them, and lighted from the court within, which are
devoted to the private studies of the curators and to the reserve
collections belonging to the same series as the exhibited collections in
the public galleries, with which they are in connection. Thus the
public collections, the reserve collections, and the officers in charge,
are in each section of the museum brought into close relation--a most
advantageous arrangement, and one greatly facilitating the new museum
idea. The only drawback is that these rooms, occupying the inner side of
the quadrangular range of galleries, are necessarily small, and, as the
collections grow, will be found insufficient for the purpose. This has,
in fact, already proved to be the case in several departments, and a
remedy has been found by devoting the whole upper story of the building
to the reserve collections of insects, shells, and plants, and the
working library of the institution,--an arrangement which gives
excellent accommodation for these important departments, at all events
for the present. A great difficulty will, however, arise in the future
owing to the building being externally architecturally complete and
visible on all four sides from the public grounds in which it stands; it
therefore admits of no extension, and the public galleries already
contain as many specimens as can possibly be placed in them with any
advantage. These are in most sections, especially the invertebrata,
displayed in an extremely tasteful and instructive manner, but the
series is by no means over-large for a national museum. The limitation
of space is partly due to the somewhat singular division which has been
made between the art and the natural history collections. Instead of
taking the dividing line adopted at the British Museum between specimens
in a state of nature and those fashioned by man’s hand, the pictures,
the splendid collection of European mediæval armour, the classical and
Egyptian antiquities, are treated as works of art; but the so-called
ethnological collection, containing the specimens of Mexican, Peruvian,
Japanese, Chinese, Polynesian, African, and prehistoric European art,
are placed in the Natural History Museum, taking up a large portion of
the space which the curators of the zoological, mineralogical, and
geological departments hoped to have had at their disposal for the
display of their specimens. Whether room could have been found for them
in the Art Museum or not, I cannot say; but certainly their actual
position is incongruous, and it is difficult to understand why a
Peruvian mummy should find its place in a building professedly devoted
to natural history, while the preserved remains of the ancient Egyptians
are treated as works of art.
Before leaving Vienna I should like to refer to the splendid specimens
of taxidermy by the artist Hodek, the choicest examples of whose work
are contained in a special collection, occupying a small separate room,
consisting of sporting trophies of the late Crown Prince, Rudolph.
Otherwise the general level of the specimens in the galleries is in no
wise remarkable. The birds have the advantage of being mounted, not upon
turned wooden stands of uniform pattern as in Paris, but upon pieces of
natural tree branches, fixed in square or oblong oak-stands. The
exhibited specimens of vertebrate zoology include skeletons, but no
other anatomical preparations, of which there is a distinct collection
in the University Museum. The exhibited fishes and reptiles are
exceedingly well preserved and mounted in spirit. In the Mollusca,
Articulata, Echinoderms, and Corals, great care has been taken in
setting the specimens off to advantage by selecting appropriate colours
for backgrounds. Specimens in spirit are interspersed in their proper
places. All have printed labels. The cases in which they are displayed
are of oak, and of very handsome and even ornamental construction.
The arrangement of all these collections displays a most intelligent
appreciation of the needs of the ordinary visitor. Thus in the room
appropriated for the exhibition of insects there are three distinct
series--a general systematic series, a morphological series, and a very
fine special collection of the insects of the neighbourhood of Vienna.
The other rooms are arranged more or less on similar principles. The
main collection of insects is, as I have mentioned before, entirely
apart in rooms very well adapted to the purpose, in the upper floor of
the building, and kept as usual in drawers in cabinets.
The zoological portion of the new museum for “Naturkunde,” in Berlin,
situated in the Invaliden Strasse, is a remarkable illustration of the
complete revolution of ideas on museum arrangement, which took place
between its commencement and its completion. The building, entirely
designed upon the old system, came empty into the hands of the present
director, who has arranged the contents absolutely upon the new method.
It consists of a fine glass-covered hall, and three stories of
galleries, all originally intended for a uniform exhibition of all the
various groups of specimens which had accumulated in the crowded rooms
of the old museum in the University. When Dr. Möbius succeeded to the
directorate, he conceived the bold plan of limiting the public
exhibition to the ground floor, and devoting the two upper stories
entirely to the reserve or working collections. This was a step which
required some courage to take, especially as the two great staircases,
which are the principal ornamental architectural features of the
building, have by it become practically useless. Except, of course, for
certain inconveniences always resulting from adaptation of a building to
purposes not originally contemplated, especially local disjunction of
different series of the same groups, the result has been eminently
satisfactory; and if the arrangement is completed upon the lines laid
down by the Director, as explained to me on my last visit, this will be
the most practical and conveniently arranged museum of natural history
at present existing. As much attention appears to be bestowed upon
making the exhibited portion attractive and instructive, as on making
the reserve collections complete and accessible to workers. In the
former, the characteristics of the native fauna were being specially
developed. For instance, the fish collection (of which the individual
specimens are beautifully displayed in spirit, fastened on to glass
plates in flat-sided jars) consists of a general representative
systematic series, and three special faunistic collections, one of the
German freshwater fishes, one of the north and east sea fishes, and one
of the Mediterranean fishes. One room is devoted to German mammals and
birds, and the recently added specimens show indications of an
improvement in taxidermy which would have been impossible in the old
days of wholesale bird-stuffing. Excellently prepared anatomical
specimens, diagrams, explanatory labels, and maps showing geographical
distribution, are abundantly introduced among the dried specimens of
which such collections are usually composed, and a commencement has been
made of illustrations of habits and natural surroundings. On the other
hand, in marked contrast to Vienna, everything in the way of
architecture and furniture and fittings is severely plain and practical,
and a uniform drab colour is the pervading background for all kinds of
specimens. All danger from fire seems to have been most carefully
guarded against. The floors are of artificial stone, the cases, and even
the shelving, are constructed of glass and iron. Wood is almost entirely
excluded, both in the structure and fittings. The ground floor, as I
have said, is entirely devoted to the public exhibition, the first story
to the reserve collection of vertebrates, and the upper story to the
invertebrates; and the basement contains commodious rooms for unpacking,
mounting, preparing skeletons, etc. The construction of the building
allows of considerable extension backwards, whenever more space will be
needed, at small cost and with little interference with existing
arrangements. I should also mention that the zoological department of
the University, with its admirably appointed laboratories and lecture
rooms, and excellent working collections for teaching purposes, is in
immediate contact with the museum, and the two institutions, though
under different direction, are thus brought into harmonious
co-operation.
Any one who wishes to compare and contrast the two systems upon which a
national zoological museum may be arranged cannot do better than visit
Paris and Berlin at the present time. He will see excellent
illustrations of the best of both.
Of the museums of the United States of America much may be expected.
They are starting up in all directions, untrammelled by the restrictions
and traditions which envelop so many of our old institutions at home,
and many admirable essays on museum work have reached us from the other
side of the Atlantic, from which it appears that the new idea has taken
firm root there. In Mr. Brown Goode’s lecture on “The Museums of the
Future” (Report of the National Museum, 1888-89) it is said: “In the
National Museum in Washington the collections are divided into two great
classes,--the exhibition series, which constitutes the educational
portion of the museum, and is exposed to public view with all possible
accessories for public entertainment and instruction; and the study
series, which is kept in scientific laboratories, and is scarcely
examined except by professional investigators. In every properly
constructed museum the collections must, from the very beginning, divide
themselves into these two classes, and in planning for its
administration provision should be made not only for the exhibition of
objects in glass cases, but for the preservation of large collections
not available for exhibition, to be used for the studies of a very
limited number of specialists.”
The museum of comparative zoology at Harvard, founded by the late Louis
Agassiz, and now ably administered and extended by his son, Alexander
Agassiz, is a conspicuous example of the same method of construction and
arrangement. But as I can say nothing of these from personal knowledge,
I am obliged to leave out any further reference to them on the present
occasion.