WCP2216

Ja[nuar]y 17/ [18]69.

My dear Wallace

I have read your paper on Museums with great pleasure & thank you for it.¹ It appears to me sound & just, & there are one or two points that I shall apply to the Kew Museum.²

The only doubt I should have in a practical point of view is ^{in regard to} the Ethnological department — how far it should perhaps be appended [2] to a N[atural]. H[istory]. Museum[.] A few skulls or photographs would not be out of place, but I think that articles of clothing & art would be — it is broaching a new subject altogether. Nor do I see why you should illustrate pictorial art (from the pictorial delineation of the Mammoth & Landseer) & not every other variety of art & manufacture. I do not think that the public would be satisfied with [3] a very imperfect idea of the progress of civilization as such a museum could alone contain, & it would be impossible for the Director (whose word would be law as to what should be ^{collected &} displayed of Plants Animals & Plants) to be an authority in such matters— Further if you go into this, so you should into ^the anatomy & physiology of the human [one illeg].

I hope that with Mr Fergusson³ in the B[oard]. of works⁴ we shall have something good in the way of Museum buildings.

Have you ever seen the enclosed⁵ — which we printed over ten years ago!

Most truly yours | Jos D Hooker [signature]