MUSEUMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 243, 14 October 1925, Page 16

MUSEUMS.

THEIR OBJECTS AND METHODS. ADDRESS BY MR. ARCHEY. Taking a3 his subject, "The Museum and the Community," Mr. Gilbert Archey, curator of the Auckland Museum, delivered a short address yesterday to the members of the Karangahape Road Business Promotion Society. Besides public museums, Mr. Archey pointed out, there are also University museums which are definitely connected with the curriculum of universities and are virtually enlarged laboratories. Then there are also special museums such as the Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, dealing with a special display of anthropological material. Another is the Philadelphia Commercial Museum, which is known all over the world by reason of its utility in collecting and disseminating information of value to the commercial world. Again there are in moat of the older countries, research museums, which exist solely for the use of students concerned in scientific research.

Coming v to the functions of the more popular kind, the public museum, Mr. Archey continued, they might be stated as follow: The collection and preservation of objects in natural history, in anthropology and art. So far as public museums in New Zealand were concerned, anthropology must necessarily take a prominent place as the result of the interest shown in the history of the races that first inhabited this country. As to art it must be remembered that art galleries were really museums under another name. Indeed, when one considered the collections of artistic metal work, porcelain, etc, it would be recognised that they could be just as appropriately housed in au art gallery or a museum.

A feature of public museum work, which was undergoing modernisation, was the arrangement of the contents. Formerly they were all placed on view, row after row, according to a scientific classification irrespective of general interest. Nowadays the policy followed was to make a display of representative portions that were likely to interest the public, keeping the remainder of the exhibits relating to the same section stored in cupboards where they were available for purposes of study. It was the 'business of the staff of a public museum to study and make known to the public the result of their investigations. In this connection they were glad of the co-operation of the Universities. The museum rooms were always at the disposal of students, also of art and craft workers generally. In other words, the museum became to those imbued with scientific and artistic ideals a centre of culture where every facility was given for research.

As an instance of the public interest, Mr. Archey mentioned that half the correspondence at the museum was entailed in answering questions sent in from various sources.

The curator dwelt particularly on the use that was properly made in England and America of museums in the education of children. A visit to a museum brought out the powers of observation and imagination and provided opportunities for the teacher to emphasise the ordered systems in nature and to stimulate their love of beauty. The policy followed was for the museum staff to fake the teachers round and give them 'h» npfessary explanations. Then the K.i hers could subsequently pay a visit with i" - pupils and pass the information on to ill -in. One extension of these activities he v V.l also like to see adopted in the Dmn'r'on was the institution of what might ! - described as loan museums. This would reailv be a small travelling collection of j'J-'wts selected from museums which wou'd be chosen for their particular educational value to children. They would be taken round from echool to school and periodically returned to the museum for inspection and attention.