should be considered as absolutely necessary for the welfare of every Municipality throughout the country. Gaols and workhouses are provided as a matter of course, and why should not Museums and Free Libraries be looked upon as of equal importance? These institutions are calculated to take a high place in the educating of the people in the duties and privileges of citizenship. Even on the ground of being economical investments, every Municipality should possess its Museum and Free Library. There is unmistakable proof that crime is decreasing, and this may be largely attributed to the presence, in many of the large towns, of the institutions for which I am pleading.

The conviction has impressed itself deeply upon me during inquiry into this subject that it is only the rate-supported Museums which are doing really useful work. Museums supported by subscriptions and voluntary donations are in a state of decrepitude and decay. Many of them are almost ready to close their doors from lack of public support and interest. Ultimate failure in many instances can only be avoided by giving the Museum an entirely new lease of healthy life by the adoption of the Public Libraries and Museums Acts, and making each existing Museum the nucleus of such an effort.

Municipalities could, by the adoption of the Public Libraries or Museums Acts, begin first with a Museum, but it appears that, in the majority of cases, it is wiser and more politic to begin with a Free Library, and let the Museum grow out of this work.

The Lending and Reference Libraries, with cheerful

newsrooms well supplied with the leading periodicals, appeal to a larger number than does the Museum, and so the work becomes popularised and prepares the way for a Museum being established. If the success of the Library is assured, generous gifts of money or kind are much more likely to flow in for the sister institution, when it is in process of organisation.

We may, as a nation, congratulate ourselves that we are not behind other nations in the excellence of these institutions, although in point of number we may, perhaps, be outstripped. Taking a general survey, we are in advance in some departments, rather than behind the corresponding institutions of Europe and America.

It is not commendable to us, as a nation, that there has been, comparatively, a paucity of large-hearted gifts of money and of private collections to these institutions. Some Museums and Art Galleries have fared exceedingly well in this direction, but others have had little for which to thank donors. I trust this work may lead to the awakening of a new interest on the part of the public in Museums and Art Galleries, and that in the future there will be many noble and generous bequests to record.

20, Lordship Park,

Stoke Newington,
London, N.

September, 1888.