Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-317) and index

Geography / Strabo -- Rerum rusticarum libri tres / Marcus Terentius Varro -- The life and times of Anthony Wood, antiquary, of Oxford, 1632-1695, described by himself, collected from his diaries and papers / Andrew Clark -- My design in forming this museum / Charles Willson Peale -- The Mount Vernon Association / Sara Agnes Pryor -- A word about museums / Edwin Lawrence Godkin -- The history of the origin and development of museums / H.A. Hagen -- An address on the practical value of the American museum / Luigi Palma di Cesnola -- Purposes and aims of modern museums / Frederic A. Lucas -- The functions of museums / Paul M. Rea -- War museums / H. Bolton -- Museums and the people / Erwin H. Barbour -- State and local historical societies / Reuben Gold Thwaites -- On the ideal relations of public libraries, museums, and art gallery to the city -- Oliver C. Farrington -- The art museum and the public / Mariana Alley Van Rensselaer -- English art connoisseurship and collecting / Sir J. C. Robinson -- The use and abuse of museums / W. Stanley Jevons -- The relationships and responsibilities of museums / G. Brown Goode -- Modern museums / William Henry Flower -- Museum ideals of purpose and method / Benjamin Ives Gilman -- The new museum / John Cotton Dana -- The museum conscience / Joseph Grinnell -- Museum ethics / L. Earle Rowe -- The children's museum as an educator / Anna Billings Gallup -- The relation of the museum to the schools / Carolyn M. Rea -- If public libraries, why not public museums? / Edward S. Morse -- The museum in educational work / Frederick Starr -- The museum, the original exponent of visual education / Frank C. Baker -- The function of the museum instructor / Elizabeth M. Whitmore -- Museums and other classified collections as instruments of education in natural science / Henry Scadding -- The place of museums in education / Thomas Greenwood -- The museum's part in making of Americans / Laura W.L. Scales -- The museum's educational credo / Winifred E. Howe -- Museum for the people / Alfred Russel Wallace -- The improvements effected in modern museums of Europe and Australia / Gerard Krefft, with extensive quotations from John E. Gray -- The dullness of museums / John George Wood -- The anthropological exhibits at the American Museum of Natural History / George A. Dorsey -- Some principles of museum administration / Franz Boas -- Modern exhibitional tendencies of museums of natural history and ethnology designed for public use / Henry L. Ward -- On the educational uses of museums / Edward Forbes -- The social museum as an instrument of university teaching / Francis G. Peabody -- The relation of the art museum to a university / Edward W. Forbes -- Training museum workers / Homer R. Dill -- Museums and their purpose / N. H. Winchell -- Botanical gardens / Nathaniel Lord Britton -- The Missouri Botanical Garden / William Trelease -- The Arnold Arboretum : what it is and does / Charles Sprague Sargent -- Zoological gardens : a critical essay / Theodore Link -- The making of a zoological-park masterpiece / William T. Hornaday -- Administration of the public aquarium / Charles H. Townsend