Many
very beautiful things have, from time to time, been sent
there--pictures, collections, priceless vases; and I am sure that
those visitors who brought with them the sense of beauty and feeling
for artistic work which comes of culture, have carried away memories
and lessons which will last them for a lifetime. On the other hand, to
those who visit the Museum chiefly in order to see the people, it has
long been painfully evident that the folk who do not bring that sense
with them go away carrying nothing of it home with them. Nothing at
all. Those glass cases, those pictures, those big jugs, say no more to
the crowd than a cuneiform or a Hittite inscription. They have now, or
had quite recently, on exhibition a collection of turnips and carrots
beautifully modelled in wax: it is perhaps hoped that the
contemplation of these precious but homely things may carry the people
a step farther in the direction of culture than Sir Richard Wallace's
pictures could effect. In fact, the Bethnal Green Museum does no more
to educate the people than the British Museum. It is to them simply a
collection of curious things which is sometimes changed. It is cold
and dumb. It is merely a dull and unintelligent branch of a
department; and it will remain so, because whatever the collections
may be, a Museum can teach nothing, unless there is someone to expound
the meaning of the things.
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