“How
could art make any progress, how could it even exist, if its productions were
destroyed as soon as they were created, if there were no museums, private or
public, in which they could be preserved and made available to mankind now and
hereafter? How could science be studied without ready access to the materials
upon which knowledge is built up? In many branches of science the progress is
mainly commensurate with the abundance and accessibility of such materials… The
value of a museum will be tested not only by its contents, but by the treatment
of those contents as a means of the advancement of knowledge. ”
Sir William Henry Flower
Presidential address to the
Museums Association in London, July 3, 1893
