Abstract
OUR forefathers regarded museums simply as storehouses for freakish, reminiscent, or merely curious objects, and as the place in which to deposit the various oddments presented by travellers abroad. There was no “ purpose “ in the display of the objects exhibited, other than that of perchance amusing stray visitors. So far as this country is concerned, the new era of museum management began with the foundation of the British Museum at Bloomsbury, when the first attempt was made to eliminate the purely “ show man “ element and substitute meaning and purpose in the arrangement of its contents. As compared with the Continental museums, it stands easily first in the character of its endeavours to interest, as well as instruct, the public. But in this we have serious rivals in the museums of the United States, as may be gathered from the forty-sixth annual report of the American Museum of Natural History. In this, and other similar institutions in America, huge sums are spent on large groups of mammals and birds mounted to reproduce the exact environment in which such animals lived. And this illusion is further heightened by skilfully painted backgrounds, executed by artists who accompany the collectors in order that they may reproduce the actual environment in which the specimens lived. This, however, is but an extension of the methods of exhibition introduced by the British Museum many years ago.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
P., W. The Standards and Functions of Museums . Nature 96, 96–97 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/096096a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/096096a0