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THE INDUSTRIAL MUSEUM
lecture-room in the way mentioned. All three likewise have, from the first, been associated with the Industrial Museum of Scotland, which, moreover, is the only Museum of the kind, or indeed institution in the country, having a special chair of Technology attached to it.
V. Apart, however, from the importance of those supplementary institutions in enabling the curators of the Museum to render it more instructive to the public, two of them, namely, the Laboratory (including the Workshop) and the Library, may themselves be made directly serviceable to the community.
The Laboratories of the Industrial Museums, besides affording those in charge of the latter the means of examining substances of general economic interest, are at the service of the public in two ways: - 1. As schools of analytical chemistry; where, for moderate fees, young men may learn the art of chemical analysis as applied to industrial objects. 2. As analytical laboratories; where, likewise, for moderate fees, merchants or others may have confidential analyses made of substances whose composition they seek for their own guidance to know; and where the officers of the museums may be consulted by those engaged in legal contests, or in other transactions where the services of scientific advisers are required.
An Engineering Workshop, as distinguished from a chemical laboratory, has not yet been fully recognised, so far as I am aware, as one of the complements of an Industrial Museum, but sooner or later I cannot doubt it will be. I indulge the hope also, that it may be made serviceable to the general public, for the testing of mechanical inventions, as the laboratories are for the testing of chemical products and manufactures. Certainly, whether in connection with Industrial Museums, or with other institutions, it is very desirable that ingenious workmen and others of limited means should be able, at a moderate cost, to ascertain confidentially the value of embryo inventions before expending labour, time, and money on their perhaps unwise elaboration. Meanwhile, however, I only name the workshop as a subsidiary appendage to the laboratory.
VI. The Libraries of our Industrial Museums, as at present organized, are chiefly intended for the officers of these institutions, including, to some extent, the students in daily attendance for each session. Nor is it necessary or desirable that an Industrial Museum should provide reading for the general public, which