The Correlation of Art and Science in the Museum

What is it that makes the museum a success? I believe this question may be satisfactorily answered by a careful study of the people who visit museums. Go to some good museum and stroll quietly about among the groups of spectators and listen to their remarks; note carefully the types of exhibits that attract their attention, occasion their comment, and hold their interest. If you are interested and wish to follow up your investigation, go again and as often as you are able. You may thereby get some suggestions for building a museum for the public that never would occur to you otherwise. If you are connected with a museum and have been rash enough to make exhibits of your own it is possible that your pet ideas may receive a distinct shock from the frank criticism of some innocent spectator. Nevertheless, heed well what you may hear, for it is the impression that an exhibit makes on the spectator that counts. No matter how well a group is executed, if it does not tell this spectator the story it was designed to tell, it is a failure

Dill and Bryan on Laysan Island

Volume: 29Start Page: 412End Page: 41

Report of an expedition to Laysan Island in 1911 : under the joint auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture and University of Iowa /

no.42 (1912