School Work of In direct line with what may be termed passive educational work by means of carefully arranged and well labeled exhibits is the active participation of museums in the work of public schools of all grades by means of circulating loan collections, the giving of lectures at museums or sending lecturers to the schools, and the loaning of series of lantern slides to illustrate such subjects as natural history, geography, history or tech nology, and in this connection motion pictures have been found most helpful.
The initiative in this line seems to have been taken by the Buffalo Academy of Sciences in 1872 and the Davenport Academy of Sciences in 1878, in both cases by means of lectures given at the museum. The Public Museum of Mil waukee appears to have been the first to loan definitely selected material; the American Mu seum of Natural History, under the administra tion of Professor Bickmore, the first to give systematic courses of lectures more or less cor related with school work. This latter institu tion was also the first to establish a depart ment of public education (instruction) for the sole object of co-operating with the public schools.
Following in the lead of these institutions, or acting independently, many other museums have actively engaged in school work, notably the Commercial Museum of Philadelphia, Chi cago Academy of Sciences and the Educational Museum of the Saint Louis public schools. This last, the first to he devoted exclusively to school work, though founded by the board of education in 1904 as an outcome of the exposi Lion of that year, is a museum of distribution rather than of exhibition, its work being the loaning of specimens, charts, models and similar objects to the public schools.
Classification.— Museums may be grouped or classified by their contents, or according to the purposes for which they were established. Following the first method Dr. Goode has di vided them into museums of art, history, an thropology, natural history, technology and commerce. A museum may be established for any of these great subjects as a whole or for one of the many branches in to which they may be subdivided. Thus a museum of natural his tory may comprehend both animals and plants, or one of the other of these primary divisions; it may include the animals of a single continent, a single geographical region or be restricted to those of one locality; it may be devoted to some large group, as mammals, birds or insects, to some minor division, as birds of prey, butter flies, etc., and may or may not include fossil
species. Technology may be greatly subdivided, and while the favorite and more striking sub jects are shipbuilding and railroads, there are also museums of hygiene and textile fabrics, while the United States National Museum con tains collections illustrating the development of electrical apparatus. And technology may tres pass on art in the matter of ornament, or, like art, be included in a historical collection illus trating the progress of mankind or of one nation.
According to the purposes for which they are founded Dr. Goode distinguishes national museums; local, provincial or city museums; college and school museums; professional or class museums; and museums or cabinets for special research owned by societies or individu als. This scheme of classification is open to the objection that it confuses purpose with owner ship or administration, since, for example, na tional and municipal museums are not merely for the display of objects found within their boundaries, but for those belonging to the na tion or city.
College and school museums have for their immediate purpose the formation of collections that shall aid students in understanding various problems connected with science, technology or art, but they are usually extended beyond this and become more or less general in their char acter. This has been the case with the museums of Harvard and Yale universities and is notably true of many foreign museums, such as that of the Royal University of Prussia, which is the national museum. The professional museum is for the illustration of some special occupa tion or line of research such as mining, medi cine or even psychology, which has a museum at Florence founded by Mantegazza. The largest institution of this kind is the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, which has developed from the private collection of John Hunter.
The Army Medical Museum, Washington, had its inception during the Civil War as a museum of pathology and military surgery, but its scope has been so extended that it offers a fairly comprehensive history of the progress of medicine and surgery. The library established in connection with this museum has grown to be the first medical library in the world.