Page:The museum, (Jackson, Marget Talbot, 1917).djvu/88

66 during the night has done great harm to objects in the museum.

Sometime a system will be installed and operated by which museums can be cooled in summer and warmed in winter, and the humidity kept practically constant. Such a system has been installed in one of our great museums, but it has not been operating long enough to prove how successful it may be. All these ideal arrangements are very expensive to instal and still more so to operate. It is only the exceptional museum in this country that has a budget large enough to warrant the use of them. Humidity is tested in European museums by hygrometers, which are fixed to the wall in each room. In this country these hygrometers seem to be unsuccessful, perhaps because they are not watched sufficiently closely, and perhaps because they are meddled with by the public. If no hygrometers are provided in the rooms some person in authority should test the air at least once a day in order to tell whether the conditions are right for the works of art. It is not sufficient for us to provide a place where beautiful things can be seen to advantage. We must also provide sufficient care for those things so that future generations will not be deprived of their enjoyment. Thermometers of some kind are always placed in the