Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/246

216 and then a very soft painter's dust brush is the most effective. Tapestries should be dusted from time to time gently and with a soft brush, but this should not be done in the exhibition gallery. Walls hung with textiles should be cleaned once in six months with a vacuum cleaner, which can also be used around the radiators. The objects on exhibition should not be cleaned with this apparatus. The presence of dust in a museum is not only unsightly, it is dangerous, for it breeds moths, mice and other pests besides being injurious to the objects on exhibition. Paintings should not be touched by the janitors or custodians but should be dusted once a month or once in two months at most, by the gallery man, using a piece of soft, clean China silk to wipe off the face of the painting and a soft brush or clean dust cloth on the frame. Marble and bronze sculpture also can be dusted with a clean painter's brush. The ordinary cleaning of casts is best done in this way also. A feather duster is an instrument of evil. It scatters the dust and the little bones in each feather are always sharp enough to scratch any object they may touch.

Care should be taken in the use of all cleaning tools. They must be soft and clean or they will do more harm than good.