EDUCATIONAL USE OF MUSEUMS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22307, 22 January 1938, Page 12

EDUCATIONAL USE OF MUSEUMS

AN INCREASING TREND ABROAD

MR GILBERT ARCIIEY RETURNS TO Al'C K LAN n [THE PRESS Special Service.] AUCKLAND, January 21. The opinion that everywhere museums were becoming more and more aware of their educational functions was expressed by Mr Gilbert Archey, Director of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, who returned to Auckland by the Monterey after a tour abroad.

Education authorities were becoming alive to the educational possibilities of museums, he said, and in England and on the Continent education authorities were placing specially trained teachers in museums.

"Their system is like that we shall be inaugurating in Auckland this year by means of a Carnegie Corpora I ion grant, supplemented by a Government subsidy," said Mr Archey. "This system operates in America, but here again private endowment has been the most liberal field. The museum in Chicago has a double endowment, one given many years ago for school work, and a recent gift for adult education.'' Every museum had an active and progressive educational department, and there were at least two children's museums in Brooklyn and in Boston, both privately endowed, with a splendid equipment of exhibition halls, lecture theatres, cinema, class rooms, and club rooms, he said. They had been attempting similar enterprises in Auckland, but their range of activities had to be modest in comparison with what these liberally-endowed institutions were doing. "I have always" hoped that this particular work—a children's museum service—might appeal to some possible benefactor of the Auckland Museum," said Mr Archey.