a re-survey of the situation recently presented itself to me, and I was led to the conclusion that a redisposition of our forces was required if we were to cope adequately with the difficulties of the present situation. On that occasion, however, I had another object in view, and alluded to this question only so far as was necessary to explain certain proposals with regard to art-museums.[1] The subject is too important to be dealt with as a side-issue, and so I wish to discuss some aspects of it a little more fully.
Let us then consider the main purposes of museums, and see first how each of them may best be worked out, and secondly how they may be combined when necessary.
First, then: What are the functions of museums? Multifarious though they are, the more important of them may be placed under three heads:
(a) The collection and preservation of material for study by experts, so that they may widen the bounds of knowledge. The ultimate aim of this function may be summed up in one word—investigation.
(b) The collection, preservation and exhibition of material for the education of less advanced students and for the assistance of amateurs. The provision for students covers such collections and exhibitions as samples of textiles for the use of weavers, specimens of wood-carving and of wrought iron for the workers in wood and in metal, plaster cases, paintings and engravings for students of the plastic and graphic arts, anatomical preparations for medical students, series of natural objects or of physical apparatus and the like for young people taking their B.Sc. The term 'amateurs' is a convenient one to include the field-naturalists who come to a museum to identify their captures, the collector of coins, of postage stamps or of china, who wishes to verify some recent acquisition, and, in short, the many lovers of art, who without being artists, art critics or connoisseurs, yet enjoy the examination of even inferior productions of some school or period in which they have assumed an interest. For students and amateurs alike, this function of the museum may briefly be expressed as instruction.
(c) The selection and display of material in such a way as to attract the general public, to provide for its members intellectual and esthetic pleasure, and so eventually to interest them in noble things outside the daily groove. Any one who visits a museum, or any portion of a museum, not as a specialist or student, but as a sight-seer, is to be regarded as one of the general public. To every such layman, learned or unlearned, the museum should help to give that higher and broader
- ↑ Museums Association. Aberdeen Conference, 1903. 'Address by the President,' Museums Journal, III., pp. 71-94, 110-132 and 36 plates; September and October, 1903.
