A somewhat, erm, controversial view on one role for museum collections in society... ‘For good or for evil ... we have thought proper to place power in the hands of the masses. The masses are ignorant, and knowledge is swamped by ignorance. The knowledge they lack is the knowledge of history. This lays them open to the designs of demagogues and agitators, who strive to make them break with the past, and seek the remedies for existing evils, or the means of future progress, in drastic changes that have not the sanction of experience... The law that Nature makes no jumps, can be taught by the history of mechanical contrivances, in such a way as at least to make men cautious how they listen to scatter-brained revolutionary suggestions.’ [Pitt Rivers, 1891 ‘Typological Museums Journal of the Society of Arts 40: 115-6]
Posted on: Mon, 08 Jul 2013 14:17:54 +0000