ABSTRACT
Provincial museums are very generally either the property of societies the funds of which are expended mainly in publishing memoirs, or are carried on in connection with free libraries. The abnormal connection between museums and libraries should be severed, as it is to be severed in the case of the national collections, because they have no real connection with one another. The Public Libraries Act of 1855 has certainly failed so far as relates to the establishment of museums, if the rapid development of other means of advancing knowledge during the last twenty-two years be taken into account. Well-supported collections in a big barn or an old cotton-mill are more likely to be useful than a grand building on which the greater part of the funds are likely to be spent to the starving of the museum within. The subject is well worth the attention of all who have at heart the higher education of the people.
