Good Stuff from Old Books

Still-useful advice from Victorian museum advocate Thomas Greenwood, in his book Museums and Art Galleries, 1888.

Comments

Anonymous said…
This is so wonderful! Critical museum studies started much earlier than we thought....
Stephanie said…
Interesting that he advocates starting a private collection. He wasn't a fan of 'cabinet' style collecting though, and said something along the lines of 'the orderly soul of the Museum student' would 'quake' at the sight of such an idiosyncratic arrangement.
Dr J said…
Haha, I love Victorians! I suspect he wanted the visitor to start their own collection to get a feel for learning from objects, and to understand the processes of selection and classification. At least, that's what I told my students when I presented this tidbit in class!

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