MUSEUM MOVEMENT OVERSEAS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21908, 8 October 1936, Page 11

MUSEUM MOVEMENT OVERSEAS

ADVANCES NOTED BY MR

H. D. SKINNER

<PHES3 ASSOCIATION TELEGBAII.)

DUNEDIN, October T.

The great advance overseas in the museum movement, the development of galleries dealing with local history, and the expansion of the educational side to link with primary schools were commented on by Mr H. D. Skinner, assistant curator of the Otago Museum, who returned yesterday from a tour of Britain and the Continent. In the local museum movement, the history, geology, and flora and fauna of local districts were treated exclusively, he said. Such museums were springing up everywhere in England, the commonest type being a series of period rooms. Mr Skinner paid particular attention to the close connexion developing between primary schools and public museums. At the Manchester Museum, there was a staff of five teachers paid by the local educational authority, and more than 90,000 children passed through its rooms and galleries annually. The finance for this great extension of museum activities was found through contributions by local mynici-. pal bodies.