(p32 - 33)
The first person to establish an archaeological-cum-ethnographical
museum, a museum planned to illustrate the worldwide development
of human culture and to do so specifically for educational purposes
was Lieutenant-General Pitt-Rivers [sic] ... He was a pioneer in four ways. First, his primary aim, unlike
those of his predecessors and most of his contemporaries, was
to recover information, not to acquire beautiful and valuable
antiquities. This view of the archaeologist's task is encapsulated
in his celebrated remark that 'the value of relics, viewed as
evidence, may be said to be in inverse ratio to their intrinsic
value'. (Pitt Rivers papers, Salisbury Museum L.846)... Thirdly,
he studied and analysed his finds with the sole purpose of building
up a better understanding of the life of our ancestors. To this
end, he carried out many practical experiments, such as knapping
flints, digging with bone and animal tools and throwing boomerangs.
... fourthly he made his discoveries and conclusions available
to everyone, partly in handsome volumes published at his expense
and partly in the Museum at Farnham, Dorset.
Nothing like the Farnham Museum and its setting had ever been seen before. It contained anthropological and social history collections, as well as archaeological objects from Cranborne Chase and elsewhere, and it was surrounded by the Larmer Grounds, which offered visitors a remarkable range of leisure activities, an art gallery, a bandstand, Indian houses bought from the Great Exhibition, golf links, a racecourse, an open-air theatre, picnic facilities and an enclosure containing exotic wild animals. Everything was calculated to bring people to the museum, often from a considerable distance, in order that they might educate themselves.
Pitt Rivers made a sharp contrast between his own museum and the British Museum (Journal of the Society of Arts 18 December 1891 p115). It would be difficult to better his analysis of the kind of place which the British Museum had come to be. It had begun, he said, as 'pretty much what local museums have hitherto been, a collection of miscellaneous antiquities', then its collections had been 'enlarged and classified in historical grand divisions or geographical areas'. It had always, however, collected on an ad-hoc basis, 'as opportunity offered', and its displays were in 'rooms that are ill-adapted for displaying them historically, designed in subordination to architectural considerations'. As an educational museum, it was 'simply bewildering', but 'as a large store of antiquities, it is probably the most useful institution in the world for savants, who know what to look for and where to study them, in order to form their own classifications and deductions'. ... Pitt Rivers put a clear label on the British Museum. 'I call such a museum a Museum of Reference', he said, 'or it might, perhaps, more properly be termed, a Museum of Research'. What he was trying to create on his estate was entirely different, 'an educational museum, in which the visitors may instruct themselves'.
(p34)
The museum world has not known many geniuses. General Pitt Rivers
must certainly be reckoned to be one of them. He was a long way
ahead of his time in realising that, in order to appeal to the
general public, a museum had to have something more than interesting
collections to offer. It had to meet the common man half-way,
especially by arousing an interest in the practical aspects of
life in the past and in other cultures. And there has to be what
the General termed 'inducements'. The museum pill needed to be
sugared. 'The outing', he was sure, 'is in itself an important
accessory in a visit to a country museum...' The selling power
of a Good Day Out for All the Family is well enough understood
in the museum world ...'