Parts of this lecture and the one delivered in the previous winter in "the hall of the University of Pennsylvania," as an introduction to a course of twenty-seven,[1] remind one amazingly of certain portions of the addresses of Sir William Flower[2] and Brown Goode.[3]
Some of the characteristic features of Peale's Museum might be summarized as follows:
1. Its collections were educational rather than scientific.
2. The idea of indicating the natural environment with the mounted specimen, the idea of framing the pages of books (recommended also by Brown Goode), the idea of having diagrams and popular descriptions of the specimens beside the specimens themselves, and the idea of placing those of the 4,000 insects that were too small to be easily observed by the naked eye under permanent simple and compound microscopes, and his methods of taxidermy, all of which approach ihe arrangement of modern museums of natural history.
3. Although Peale was not the first to give lectures in natural history in this country, yet he was the first to give lectures illustrated by specimens.
The Influence of the Museum
The influence of the museum was wide-spread, but lay not in the direction that the founder had hoped. A perusal of the newspapers of the first decade of the nineteenth century will show that by this time there were a number of museums in every city. They show also that these museums were copied from Peale's Museum, in that they nearly always had a gallery of portraits of heroes in connection with a collection of curiosities. By the first quarter of the century, all had added concerts as an additional attraction. It was not long before the concert developed into a variety theater, although in the case of the Boston Museum legitimate drama was given. In the middle of the century these museums reached their greatest development, such as it was, while Peale's Museum became but a memory. Barnum's American Museum
