Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/129

Rh window bars, etc. This is open to the workers, and the men are supposed to spend, a certain amount of time in studying it, the idea being that they will have a greater respect for hand work and inspiration to better execution by this means. The same thing is, of course, true to an even greater extent in Lyons, France, where the city government maintains a large museum devoted entirely to the textile art of all nations and of all periods in order that the workmen in the silk factories may understand fully the development of the art to which they are devoting themselves.

In planning, therefore, the division of space in a museum, the committee should always arrange for exhibits of interest to the local industries. In addition there must, of course, be a collection for cultural purposes, which should mean material covering the history of art in all periods and all countries. A collection of reproductions is of inestimable value in the teaching of the history of art. Few museums can hope to possess fine examples of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Gothic and Renaissance sculpture. At present the supply of originals is limited not only by the small number which are being found, but also by the laws forbidding the exportation of works of art. Casts must be shown by themselves and plainly marked "plaster cast from the original in . . ."