The modern dime museum)) with its ex hibit of •freaks') is a survival of this phase of museum development, and the catalogues of some celebrated old collections will show that they comprised many very similar objects, as well as those of real value from a naturalist's standpoint.
Government Museums.— The final step in the establishment of public museums, the trans ferral of collections from private to govern mental ownership, may he said to date from the founding of the British Museum in 1753. At first admission was by ticket and limited to 30 persons per day; in 1810 the museum was made accessible to the public for three days a week, and not until 1879 was it open to the pub lic daily. The United States National Museum was only formally created in 1876, although so early as 1846 the govermnent.possessed collec tions which were in the custody of the Smith sonian Institution. Exploration has done so much for museums that it may almost be in cluded among the causes that have led to their formation. The colonization of America brought to Europe many examples of new plants and animals, while the Dutch East India voyages did the same for southern Asia, and it is surprising to see how large a number of species from these regions was described by Linnaeus and others so early as 1760.
In more recent times the Wilkes Exploring Expedition of 1838-42 and the government sur veys for a route for the Pacific Railroad had a very decided influence on the origin and growth of the United States National Museum, and there is scarcely an institution that has not been benefited in a similar way. It is but a step from expeditions in which scientific re sults were subordinate to practical ends to those undertaken solely for scientific purposes, and the systematic exploration of our Western Ter ritories for fossils by such institutions as the American Museum of Natural History and the Carnegie Museum, and by Yale, Princeton and other universities, has become a matter of al most daily news. Another most important factor in the development of museums has been national or international exhibitions. These have had a direct effect in bringing to gether collections illustrative of natural or in dustrial resources, and a more indirect in fluence in stimulating methods of arranging and displaying such material. The London Exhibi tion of 1851 led to the establishment of the South Kensington (now Victoria and Albert) Museum, and the ethnological museum of the Trocadero was one of the outcomes of the Paris Exposition of 1889. Our own Centennial Exhibition was the direct cause of the erection of a building for the United States National Museum and of the founding of the Pennsyl vania Museum of Art, while from the Chicago Exposition came the Field Columbian Museum, the Chicago Art Institute and the Philadelphia Commercial Museum. Other causes play minor parts in influencing the lines of growth of mu seums both small and great. Thus the extensive colonial possessions of Great Britain have been largely instrumental in making the vertebrate collections of the British Museum, the great est in the world, while the museum at Leyden is not far behind owing to the former extensive commerce of Holland. In the United States
the large deposits of fossil vertebrates in the West, their general accessibility, the imposing appearance of many of the specimens and the important results to be derived from 'their study have given a great impetus to the for :nation of palaeontological collections, while special attention has been given to the prepara tion and exhibition of this class of material. The display of fossil vertebrates in the Ameri can Museum of Natural History is unrivaled, and other notable exhibits are to be found in the Museum of Yale University, and hi the Carnegie, Field and United States National museums. The National Gallery of Art and the Freer Collection, installed in a building of its own, both forming parts of the United States National Museum, were respectively the gifts of William T. Evans and Charles L. Freer.
Popular Display of may be termed the popularizing of museums has but recently taken place, and while the display of objects has always been regarded as one of the functions of museums, it is a branch which has received particular attention only during the past 30 years. Originally the larger part of the specimens of birds and mammals were placed on exhibition, but, it became evident that this meant the injury or even loss of many, and that the public cared little for large mo notonous series of stuffed animals. At present the number of objects on exhibition is rela tively small compared with those in the re serve or study series, and there is a very gen eral effort to display at least a part of the speci mens amid their natural surroundings. The influence of the private collector has probably had much to do in bringing about this change, and the British Museum, under the adminis tration of Dr. Gunther, was the first of the great museums to introduce groups of birds, with their natural surroundings, as a part of its exhibition series. These were largely added to under the directorship of Sir William Flower, who took great interest in the problem of rendering museums attractive and instruc tive, while, following this example, the Ameri can Museum of Natural History took the lead in this direction in the United States. To the museum of Leyden, Holland, however, be longs the credit of having before this departed from the tradition that mammals must be stuffed in stiff and formal attitudes and caused some to be mounted that bore some resemblance of life. Change in the character of the exhibits has been accompanied by equal changes in the matter of labeling and to some extent in the publications issued by museums, so that from being merely storehouses of material for the benefit of a few they have become great schools of instruction for the many.