Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/514

496 the facilities offered for study and investigation by the various scientific bureaus of the Government, such as the Fish Commission, the Zoölogical Park, the Geological and Coast and Geodetic Surveys, the Naval Observatory, and the Weather, Botanical, Biological, and Entomological Bureaus of the Department of Agriculture, and systematic courses of lectures will place before him the most advanced ideas and conclusions of the largest body of scientific investigators in the world.

A single well-trained man, with a few assistants, could render invaluable aid to hundreds of post-graduate and special students, whose only need is direction as to the best means of pursuing studies and investigations. Such an organization could be located in the administrative building that it has been proposed to erect as a nucleus of the National University. From this beginning a national university of the broadest type could be developed with as much rapidity as the educational interests of the country might demand.

The National Museum can not at present give facilities to more than a score of students, but with the erection of a modern museum building, well equipped with laboratory space and a suitable staff to conduct the necessary work of installation and investigation, the scientific side of the National University would be established. It should be remembered that many of the officers of the scientific bureaus of the Government are directly connected with the museum staff as honorary curators and custodians, and that a number of them have laboratories within the museum building.

—The growth of the United States National Museum was rapid under the successful administration of Dr. Goode. When the character of the building and the funds available for the maintenance of the museum are considered, it compares favorably with any modern museum. It has received large collections from the scientific departments of the Government, by private contribution, by purchase, and by exchange, which have been accommodated as well as possible in the inadequate laboratories, storerooms, and exhibition spaces. During the fiscal year 1897-'98, accessions to the number of 1,441 were received, containing upward of 450,000 specimens—the largest number for any one year since the museum was opened. The total number of specimens recorded to July 1, 1898, exceeds four million. The galleries just completed have added sixteen thousand square feet of floor space, which is available for the spreading out and proper exhibition of material that has previously been crowded in the exhibition halls and courts on the floor; but, as an illustration of the present congested conditions, it may be stated that the anthropological