Abstract
IT is seldom that the representations of scientific men have been so fully, amply, and speedily justified as in the recent report of the Royal Commission on National Museums and Galleries (Cmd. 3192, 2s. net), to which attention was directed in our issue of Sept. 29, p. 465. The present is an interim report dealing “with certain glaring defects of accommodation,” and its concluding sentence expresses “the earnest hope that speedy action will follow our specific recommendations on urgent practical matters.” These do not involve any question of principle or of policy, with which the Commission will deal in its final report. The growth of the institutions concerned is recognised as having been “severely checked, and economy has already been pushed beyond the point of prudent administration.” These are strong words, but the Commissioners are essentially a business body and they issue a business report, admirably weighing the necessity for immediate saving of money as against the economical needs of education. The maintenance of national prestige is emphasised, and this is peculiarly important in these post-War days of increased intercourse by travel. It is not shopping potentialities, sport, or playhouses that primarily attract visitors to our metropolis, but it is historical associations, seen in buildings and design, and it is the importance of its great national collections. Their function is to be spiritually educational, and that this is of real value to practical business life few thinkers are now prepared to deny, while museums pertaining to science teach truths of far-reaching utility to commerce, to production, and to every phase of national life.
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South Kensington Museums and the Royal Commission. Nature 122, 561–563 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122561a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122561a0