National Museum

“ The National Museum is an institution of great importance, rich in its various specimens of Hindoo curiosities, and also in the possession of an extensive zoölogical and mineralogical collection, the whole contained in a noble building of modern construction. ”

“ The value of so small an incident in the crowded story of our National Museum lies simply in the fact that it forms a just and salient illustration of the narrowness of spirit with which the then representatives of the people received the liberal gift of public benefactors. ”

“ In the National Gallery one finds a throng of nursery-maids, and men just come from their work; true, they make a great deal of noise thronging to and fro on the uncarpeted floors in their thick boots, and noise from which, when penetrated by the atmosphere of Art, men in the thickest boots would know how to refrain; still I felt that the sight of such objects must be gradually doing them a great deal of good. The British Museum would, in itself, be an education for a man who should go there once a week, and think and read at his leisure moments about what he saw. ”

“ Why not throw the British Museum open every day, except on the few days when it may be necessary, if it is necessary, that artists should have it all to themselves—like the National Gallery? What good do the statues, the stuffed animals, the antiquities, and the mummies do half their time, wasting their sweetness on the desert—or at least the vacant—air? ”

“ Even if it were thought desirable to place statues under the same building, we would put them under the direction of a person specially acquainted with sculpture.
The interest of the nation has been now awakened with regard to the National Gallery, to the pictures only, to their collection and preservation. A national museum, such as Mr Dyce and others propose, is far too large a subject, to discuss which seriously would be only drawing away the public mind from that which is a pressing necessity. ”

“ The National Museum, for example, whether regarded as an educational or research institution, is insignificant when compared with the Museums of Natural History and Fine Arts in New York City, or the similar institutions of foreign nations. ”

“ The question whether they are willing to be represented by the museum as it is to-day is one that the American people should consider and decide at an early date; meantime, it is the duty of all interested in the advancement of science and education to aid by every means in their power the development of a National Museum that will be truly national and American. ”

“ The planning of museum exhibits is itself a kind of research and in this direction the American Museum, together with the National Museum in Washington and the Field Museum in Chicago, now surpasses any of the museums of the old world and in the course of the next ten years will have no rivals there. ”

“ In the chief countries of the Continent of Europe—on the other hand—great national Museums have, commonly, had their origin in the liberality and wise foresight either of some sovereign or other, or of some powerful minister whose mind was large enough to combine with the cares of State a care for Learning. In Britain, our chief public collection of literature and of science originated simply in the public spirit of private persons. ”

“ On the other hand, all specimens illustrative of languages, arts, sociology, customs, beliefs, etc., of man, gathered by the army, are deposited in the National Museum. In this way, the two institutions work in harmony, and do not duplicate each other's work.
The division of anthropology in the National Museum is organized into departments of the Arts and Industries of Mankind, in which are included, in their several sections, medicinal plants; foods and textiles ”

“ A national museum should be the center of scientific activity in the country in which it is located. In England the British Museum is the Mecca of scientific men. In Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna, Berlin, and other capitals of Europe the national museum stands in similar relations to the scientific work of its own country. ”

“ In Britain we labour under another difficulty in this respect, a difficulty which has proved beyond measure mortifying during the progress of the present essay,—the want of a national museum.—A private individual cannot be expected to sacrifice all his time and money in procuring, preparing, and arranging, a tolerably perfect collection ”

“ His services to the museum are to be measured, not so much by what he actually effected for it, great as some of these achievements were, but by the new spirit which he infused into it, the spring of all that it has done and is doing after him. His principles of administration have been thus summarised: (1) The museum is not a show, but an institution for the diffusion of culture. (2) It is a department of the civil service, and should be conducted in the spirit of other public departments. (3) It should be managed with the utmost possible liberality. ”

“ The scholarly and scientific publications of the United States National Museum include two series, Proceedings of the United States National Museum and United States National Museum Bulletin.
In these series, the Museum publishes original articles and monographs dealing with the collections and work of its constituent museums—The Museum of Natural History and the Museum of History and Technology—setting forth newly acquired facts in the fields of anthropology, biology, history, geology, and technology. ”

“ The site for such a building is already owned by the Government; only the building needs to be provided for. What the Capitol building is to the nation, the library building to the National Library, the Smithsonian building to the Smithsonian Institution, the new museum building should be to the National Museum. There should be available:
Future Development.—With suitable buildings provided, the immediate development of the National Museum naturally lies in four directions: (1) The occupation of the present building by the anthropological collections ”

“ Special emphasis will also be given to archeological, anthropological, and historical research. We should foster studies that delve into our ancient roots and help us define our past more clearly; in this connection, we should give more funds and more powers to the National Museum so that it can develop an institution of which we can all be proud. ”

“ Allotting to every one a few specimens and a mouthful of intelligence can never achieve a national undertaking; and if we intend our labours to be adequately useful, we must, from the very beginning, prepare, and lay the foundation for a Museum to concentrate and arrange the products of our investigations. ”

“ He considers it as a museum, having evidently in view a collection of curiosities, the thing above all others a National Gallery should not be. “Then, again, as every collection has in view some definite purpose, the systematic fulfilment of that purpose on the most enlarged basis—in other words, systematic arrangement, and a wholeness or completeness in relation to its particular purpose, seem necessary to the idea of a national collection.” Words, words, words! all to envelop a commonplace truth that no one need be told. ”

“ No reader of this volume will, in the course of its perusal, have become more sensible than is its author of a want of due proportion, in those notices which have occasionally been given of some eminent naturalists who have conspicuously contributed to the public collections, as compared with the notices of those many archæologists and book-gatherers who, in common with the naturalists, have been fellow-workers towards the building up of our National Museum. ”

“ Probably no museum was ever so administered, as an entirety; and as you know the large museums are making more and more of features adding to the attractiveness of the collection as{397} a popular spectacle. The public visits the Museum of Natural History in New York, much as it turns the pages of the National Geographic Magazine—just to look at the pictures. This treatment of material is justified because it increases popular interest in the subject-matter and brings people to the museum who would not otherwise enter it. ”

“ These, together with many casts and models of the remains of antiquity, gems, rare books, and illuminated manuscripts, and the whole of his own architectural designs, he arranged in his house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which he transformed into a museum, employing many ingenious devices for economising space. ”

“ The Nation has done almost nothing for the Library....
‘Considering the British Museum to be a National Library for research, its utility increases in proportion with the very rare and costly books, in preference to modern books.... I think that scholars have a right to look, for these expensive works, to the Government of the Country....
‘I want a poor student to have the same means of indulging his learned curiosity,—of following his rational pursuits,—of consulting the same authorities,—of fathoming the most intricate inquiry,—as the richest man in the kingdom, as far as books go. ”

“ The museum is the largest art museum in the South and has gained a national reputation because of its biennial exhibitions of contemporary American paintings as well as many other special exhibitions. ”

“ Charles Burney.—Francis Hargrave and his Manuscripts.—The Life and Testamentary Foundations of Francis Henry Egerton, Ninth Earl of Bridgewater.
The Reader has now seen that, within some twelve or fifteen years, a Collection of Antiquities, comparatively small and insignificant, was so enriched as to gain the aspect of a National Museum of which all English-speaking men might 414be proud, and mere fragments of which enlightened Foreign Sovereigns were under sore temptation to covet. ”

“ We find it will require all our efforts to raise the funds to pay for the site, and under these circumstances we humbly submit to your Lordship p. 6that the Government should, in exchange for the site, take the whole matter into their own hands as a national affair.
2ndly. The scheme that commends itself most to our minds is, not to distribute the superfluities of the British Museum piecemeal amongst several local museums, but that typical collections illustrating one branch of science should be arranged in one of several museums in different quarters of the metropolis. ”

“ Most of the inconveniences which are felt by visitors, as well as by Museum officers, in the existing Medal Room, are equally felt in the existing Print Room; and many of the wants which it is suggested should be provided for to make the Collection of Coins and Medals as useful and instructive as it ought to be in a great national institution, are wants against which provision must be made in order to render equally useful and instructive the Collection of Prints and Drawings. ”

“ The British Museum was founded precisely at that period of our history when the distinctively national, or governmental, care for the interests of literature and of science was at its lowest, or almost its lowest, point. As regards the monarchs, it would be hard to fix on any, since the dawn of the Revival of Learning, who evinced less concern for the progress and diffusion of learning than did the first and second princes of the House of Hanover. ”

“ These consist of Flaxman's cast of the shield of Achilles; a model of the Thugs fashioned at Madras by a native artist; a model of a moveable temple; her Majesty's present to the museum of a great Chinese bell, surmounted by the Chinese national dragon, and decorated with figures of Buddh, from a temple near Ningpo; and various cromlechs or sepulchres of the ancient Britons, ruder in their construction than those with which the visitor has lately busied himself. Having arrived at the eastern end of the room, the visitor should advance to the northern wall cases, and begin his inspection. ”

“ There is a fine university, a museum containing many valuable and venerated historical relics, a national library which is composed mostly of ancient tomes, eighty or ninety thousand in number, an observatory, said{255} to be nearer the stars than any other in the world, and a military academy, organized by Lieutenant Lemly, of the United States army, and considered the best on the Southern Continent. ”

“ Many of the national museums of continental Europe had their beginnings in collections privately acquired by monarchs, who, at a time when the modern sciences were in their infancy, entertained themselves by assembling objects which appealed to their love of the beautiful and the curious. ”

“ While great national museums have been founded and all the large municipalities of the world through private or civic gifts have established museums within their limits, a multitude of lesser towns, and even in some cases villages, have established museums, and museums as adjuncts of universities, colleges and high schools have come to be recognized as almost indispensable. ”

“ This Division now has the largest collection in the Western Hemisphere of historical objects which are related to the healing arts. The reference collections are available to the researcher and scholar, and the exhibits are intended for pleasure and educational purposes in these fields. The plans for expansion have no limitation as we keep pace with man’s progress in the medical sciences and continue to collect materials that contributed to the historical development in the fight against diseases and the attempts to secure better health for everyone. ”

“ Fixed antiquities must be reported by the discoverer to the Ephor General or one of the ephors of antiquities or other official. Damaging of ruins or remains of monuments is forbidden. Owners of the land on which portable antiquities desirable for the National Museums are found are compensated to the extent of half their value. Any person who finds antiquities on his land must report them within five days, on pain of confiscation. The same applies to any one who finds antiquities on another person's land, or in any other way comes into possession of antiquities. ”