SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIRN.

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14842, 6 December 1913, Page 9

SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIRN.

'■■ ' MUSEUM GUIDE. , ;. (Br Sia Hay Lankistkb, X.C.8., ~.",■;. .■■ : fjus.) v ■■.;.• •■,-'■ ; (Special righte secured by 'The Presa.f) The official provision of educated, capable men to act as museum "guides" is, I think, a real progress in the direction of making our great public museums tho sources of pleasure and "edification" to the community which they can and should be. When I was director of the Natural History Musuem this subject engaged my .attention. I frequently took small parties of ..my friends —half a dozen or so— round some of the galleries of the museum, and I.'learnt:-by experience what are the requirements and difficulties of the task. Frequently ihy colleagues in charge of this or that department , would give an hour or invo of their leisure to conducting, tne members of some naturalist society or club among the cases..familiar to,them, and would, by drawing attention to this or that "exhibit," and relating its history and importance, earn the gratitude of eager listeners. /We were sometimes asked to do this kind of thing a little more than was consistent with our regular duties, and it became apparent that if (as seemed possible) such personal guidance in tho visitation of the museum ttos to be a regular every-day occurrence, special pecuniary provision would -have to be made for the employment of trustworthy, capable.guides. On tho other hand, it was held that the necessity for the employment of officials us guides might be avoided by the careful selection and placing of specimens in cases where they could be seen in the best light and from various points of : view, accompanied by ;clear explanatory labels, couched in language intelligible to the ordinary man, and (-when, desirable) further illustrated by diagrams. - ', ' ' V r '• The problem-as to tho best course to pursue bristles with difficulties, ■•; I am none the less convinced that it has been shown by the actual results of the experiment made first at the Bloomsbury Museum and during the past year at Cromwell road, that the. services'of a good official guide are highly valued by the public, and that in consequence of the appointment of euch "guides' a large number of visitors to the musenms are enabled to understand and appreciate the contents of the museum cases, who without tho guides' assistance, would not have arrived at this understanding and appreciation. . Let mc state some of the dangers or probable failures attending the method of employing "guides,", and on the other land those lying m wart for «c if we trust only to the a before ono can β^ta-

mate correctly the advantages and dis- i advantages ** &* of indiriduals as guides, oflicial or non-official, to conduct par* l63 « round the Bhow a Tasfc '.«f' ealieries, as we have in the two branches of the British Museum and m the Victoria £Td Albert Museum, filled with tre* sures and open freely every day to the Dubhc is not comparable to a ruined Lrtte, an interesting church or a small collection of "cunosjties" or of "waxworks," through which .visitor* are led in a quarter of an hour by a "showman," *n° recites, more or less intelligently, a -well-worn lesson as tho Srto- S itself alon S- ™*n it is finally ejected, having "done" the chow. Kor is it a_place of etudy where minute examination of epecimens is made with the assistance of scientific treatises and original dissertations by experts. The requirements of expert investigators and university students are provided for m special private rooms in our large museums or on days when the general public ,is not admitted, or by epecial museums belonging to colleges and universities. A difficulty which has to be overcome is that the public galleries of the great London museums at the present moment axe in a transition stage, neither one thing nor the other. They were orifdnally. and to a large extent remain— -as, unfortunately, do the exhibition rooms of nearly all so-called •''museums"— essentially store-rooms, occupied largely, if not chiefly, by the accumulated specimens acquired by the museum — of inestimable value the preservation and due record of ivhich is "Ehe first purpose for which tho museum exists. They are so closely packed side by side in the cases that they hide ono another, whilst the cases are so numerous that many have to be placed in dark and ill-lit positions where, even if the specimens were less crowded together, ihev would never be eufficiontlv illuminated , to maße it worth while for any visitor to try to get a glimpse of them.

Happily the folly of thus permanently exhibiting to the bewildered public the crowded etore-cupboards of the museum has now been recognised for some years by some of these individuals responsible for it. The attempt has been, made to separate those important and striking specimens which can best serve to give pleasure and instruction to the general public from the large series of nearly identical or "iterative" Specimens which are necessary as "records" and for the investigations of special students and experts. Special cases are now set trp in thoroughly well-lit positions, in which a, single specimen or group of specimens selected for showing some important facts is placed so as to impress the visitor, and to give him the greatest facility for seeing clearly all that the specimens can show, and for reading the longer statements and the descriptive labels attached to "pointers" placed co as to guide the eye to this or that part of the specimen.- A good deal of this sort of thing was done in the Natural History Museum by the late Sir William Flower, whose work in this respect was warmly admired, and was extended and developed by mc as far as opportunity allowed. But oven in the Natural History Museum too much of what should be treated as proper to unexhibited store-rooms is massed in the public galleries for the daily bewilderment of the wandering public, because reluctance is felt to limiting the space freely accessible to all visitors.

The museum-building houses the collections appropriate to so n&ny different subjects that in the absence of a sufficient reservation of some of the galleries, to be treated as store-rooms rather than exhibition-rooms, the visitor is appalled by the prospect of going. all over the 6how and oxbausted in the attempt to do so. This is also true of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the vast collections of which are, without discrimination, open to the visitor. The> official guide helps the visitor over this ! difficulty., At the great London museums ho restricts his visitation to one section of the collection on each occasion,: taking them in order through the week.; Thus, those of the public who accompany him must learn, at any rate, that the museum can not be "done" in a couple of hours of vague sauntering from one vast hall to another, and that the real pleasure it can give is found by those who concentrate their attention for an hour or so on what is really fit for their edification, and go away.before they are ready to drop, returning on another day with new vigour. The official guide should be kept to the praiseworthy moderation in the range and length of his "visitations," which at present prevails. Another important limitation which must be mentioned is as to the rize of the parties who "go round" with the guide. They must be limited in number (probably twelve should bo the limit), so as not to create the distraction and loss of attention which occurs in a moving.crowd, and also so as not to disturb* other visitors who are independently making use of the museum. And their promenades' should also, with the same object in yiow, be limited to an hour and a half m the morning, and another similar period in the afternoon. Those who know how to enjoy museum without the assistance of a guide should not be disturbed more than is necessary in their leisurely absorption of the beauty and instruction afforded by the exhibits as set out and labelled for their use by the staff of the museum. Another difficulty is to maintain a high standard of efficiency in the officials employed as guides. It would never do to allow that standard to deteriorate, ;nor (as is likely'enough to be demanded) to permit . the use of the museum as a class-room for orations and discourses designed to bring notoriety or pecuniary profit to unauthorised teachers. It seems to mc that were the contents of our museums (already well described in cheap official publications) more suitably classified (so as to separate the objects suitable for public exhibition from the rest), and were these public portions efficiently labelled and exhibited, there would be no need to extend boyond its present modest limits the system of parties personally conducted by official guides. On the other hand, there is a curious psychological difficulty which, for the present, interferes with the success of the most carefully selected, arranged, and labelled exhibition galleries. In a large and surprising proportion the public seems to be incapable of looking at labels: They wiU not read them even when they are printed in letters an men broad. - They eeem to be in a. .certain degree "hypnotised" by the "specimens and incapable of seeing a label. I remember an instance related i by the curator of. a celebrated museum j of natural history in the United States. He-was passing.through one of the galleries—feeling, I have no doubt, a sense of pride and satisfaction in the Perfect labelling and artistic presentation of the objects in it for which he ras responsibler-when two well set-up countryman who had by no means the appearance of imbeciles, addressed him. rney were standing in front of the S™ » »: large-toothed whale, or Kuier, and examining it with rapt "Excuse mc, sir," said one m A.^ v ut .7iatmavthatDe? My f SsJ™ ih, s«»*'»the.kkeleton of an sMeton whb "oootetS™ -US i„

"Great snakes!" he said. "That is so! I did not allow there was a label."

Similar incidents are frequent. People, when in nove.l or unfamiliar sur- i roundings, can often only see what they expect to see. They go to a museum to see strange things, not words, .and are 'inhibited" or incapacitated for reading labels. In the samo way, I am told, many people disuse illustrations or diagrams in a booK, which they wish to read for distraction and amusement. They are "out for words, and the train of thought excited by words; they feel distressed and annoyed by explanatory diagrams, wnicn they associate with hard and severe demonstration and instruction, the reception of which involves an effort, and a state of mind differing from that required for pleasant reading. And so they sometimes do not "see" the pictures at all, or, at any rate, are annoyed by them,* and ignore them as far as'possible. The museum guide is useful, in view of this tendency of humanity to bo hypnotised by prepossessions and bewildered by novelty. Some authorities think that it is not worth while to drive or urge people, by means of teachers or guides, into an attitude of attention or observation when they seem to be naturally devoid of the intelligence necessary for taking such an attitude spontaneously. Ido not agree with that view. Want of attention or observation is often due to no defect of intelligence, but to an acuto susceptibility to dominating impressions and suggestions, which may be made use of by the skilful teacher to good purpose, and directed so as to result in exceptionally effective mental training and development. The museum, guide should be able to become himself the source of those dominating impressions and suggestions, which, coming from other sources, render some museum visitors incapable of reading a label.

There is one method of enabEng the public-**, at any rate, those members of it who will take a little trouble in the matter—to benefit fully by the opportunity for gaining enjoyment and knowledge presented by ''museums — which is, in my opinion, the best of all methods, and should be.eet on foot in London, as it is in New \ork. It is applicable to any museum, whether or art, archeology, or natural history. It involves the provision at the museum of a large kfturo theatre capable of seating 500 people. Let us imagine the case of tho Natural History Museum. Every Saturday afternoon (and perhaps on Monday evenings also) a lecture is given in this theatre by a thoroughly competent man of science, who is also a skilful popular teacher. Each lecture, lasting little more than half an hour, deals with some small section of the museum. All are illustrated by very numerous and carefully-prepared photographic lantern slides of the cases and of special exhibits in the museum. The lantern-slides are large enough and 1 numerous enough to show perfectly all that the specimens exhibited can show. From twelve to twenty lectures are sufficient to give adequately the kind of information about the contents or the museum which is suitable to a thoroughly popular audience. # Tho ! course is repeated without intermission. Each lecture is complete in itself. Immediately after the lecture, or on anysubsequent day, those.who have heard it pass into the museum and examine the actual specimens, which they are able to recognise without difficulty as those they £.avo just seen on the screen. A lecture once prepared and delivered i is and can be repeated by an assistant rf desirable on a subsequent occasion. A - valuable developI ment of this system is the lending of typewritten copies of the lectures and lof duplicates of the lantern Elides to schools and colleges and institutes where evening classes are held. Schoolchildren, working men, and other busy people can thus attend the weekly lectures in their own neighbourhood, and subsequently visit during the week the museum, primed with the information which will enable them to get the full benefit from it. From time to time new lectures and lectures on recent acquisitions of special interest are given at the museum by tho highly competent lecturer, who should be one of the staff of the museum, preferably the director, if he be equal to the task.

Such a lecture-theatre is greatly needed at the Natural History Museum in Cromwell road. It would serve not only for the popular "guide" course just described, but also for special lectures or courses of lectures to be given from time to time by tho keepers and chief assistants and addressed to a more limited- audience of experts and special students. It seems not altogether reasonable that the privilege of addressing an audience within the museum precincts upon fhe contents of the museum, should not devolve upon the learned men who know them best, and (as the business of their lives) make the museum what it is, whilst it is conferred upon "museum guides," who. however capable and meritorious in the discharge of their duties, cannot speak with the authority and intimate knowledge possessed by tho eminent naturalists who are permanent members of-tho museum staff. lam well aware that some of these eminent naturalists have no desire to give lectures —popular or otherwise —as part of iiteir official duty. That is natural enough—and, naturally enough, the offer of a handsome addition to their salaries, as payment for this special work, would alter the desire of some of those to whom it might be made.