On the educational uses of museums : (being the introductory lecture of the session 1853-1854) / by Edward Forbes.

  • Edward Forbes
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the educational uses of museums : (being the introductory lecture of the session 1853-1854) / by Edward Forbes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    to another, he seeks first for local collections. In almosi * every town of any size or consequence he finds a public museum, but how often does he find any part of that museiin^ devoted to the illustration of the productions of the district I The very feature which of all others would give interest am 1 value to the collection, which would render it most useful foiw teaching purposes, has in most instances been omitted, or scW treated as to be altogether useless. Unfortunately not a few country museums are little betteil than raree-shows. They contain an incongruous accumula tion of things curious or supposed to be curious, heaped together in disorderly piles, or neatly spread out with ingenious disregard of their relations. The only label attached to nine1 specimens out of ten is, “Presented by Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so;’1 the object of the presentation having been either to cherish af glow of generous self-satisfaction in the bosom of the donor, orl to get rid—under the semblance of doing a good action—of rubbish that had once been prized, but latterly had stood in the' way. Curiosities from the South Seas, relics worthless in them- ■ selves, deriving their interest from association with persons or localities, a few7 badly stuffed quadrupeds, rather more birds, a stuffed snake, a skinned alligator, part of an Egyptian mummy, f Indian gods, a case or two of shells, the bivalves usually single and the univalves decorticated, a sea urchin without its spines,1 a few common corals, the fruit of a double cocoa-nut, some* mixed antiquities, partly local, partly Etruscan, partly Roman and Egyptian, and a case of minerals and miscellaneous fossils,1 —such is the inventory and about the scientific order of their contents. I have a vivid remembrance of going through the Cheetham collection at Manchester, and hearing the explana- tion of its contents by one of the boys on the foundation, when I was of small size myself. The peculiar classification that mystified sightseers thirty years ago is in too many instances still maintained. There are, however, admirable exceptions to this censure. There are local collections arranged with skill and judgment in several of our county towns, and which at a glance tell us of the neighbourhood and activity of a few guiding and enlight-
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