Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/27

Rh but to different periods or classes of material, and we shall then have museums dotted about in the different quarters of the city where they will reach a larger number of people and where one can spend, in intimate association with a series of objects, a number of hours without that overwhelming sense of fatigue that comes to the weary visitor who knows that although he is now in gallery number 22, there are fifty-seven that he has not seen, and through which he possibly may have to pass before emerging from the building. It is very much more interesting to go to ten different places than it is to go to the same place ten times.

One other matter should be considered in choosing a lot, and that is the quality of the ground. As a concrete example let us see what happened in Berlin. So many mistakes have probably never been made elsewhere in this respect, and yet, Germany has at this present time developed museum work to the position of an exact science. It seems as though in these days it would hardly be possible anywhere for a piece of ground situated at the end of an island, between two streams which are constantly used by canal boats, to be chosen as the site for a museum, especially a museum of such importance as the Kaiser Friedrich. In the first place the ground is not capable of supporting so large a structure, and the expense of building