Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/224

194 principle that a person would think twice before spending fifty cents but that twenty-five is not too much. In this day of ten-cent moving picture shows it is an open question whether an admission charge of ten cents might not bring a larger attendance. In this connection it will be remembered that at the Deutsches Museum in Munich every visitor pays five cents on the principle that any one who wishes, can pay that much, and that the interest of the man on the street is much greater if he has to pay for what he sees. This contention seems to be justified by the number of visitors who go there and who pay their five cents admission. On the other hand, many of the people a museum most wishes to reach have large families and the payment of even five cents each for a group of six or eight is a consideration.

There is no way in which the museum can gain friends so cheaply and so legitimately as through a generous system of issuing free admission tickets. Artists and workers in decorators' shops, all those whose work should require their frequent attendance at the museum and whose funds might limit these visits should be provided with free tickets. Teachers accompanied by their pupils are almost without exception admitted free. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is very generous in this respect, admitting free, students of the