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74 METHODS OE SOCIAL REFORM.
prL'8, beoornes rather elevated than depressed by their distiuction.
As he cannot appropriate their reputation and abilities
for his own purposes, he can only magnify himself by magnifying
them, and by cordially Ebssisting in everything which
seems likely to conduce to the success of tho institution. The
subject of $the control of public institutions is one well worthy
of careful treatment, nnd which would readily fill a volume,
but it cannot bo pursued here. I mill add, however, that what
is said above is no mere fiction of the imagination, but founded
upon 1ong continued aud intimate acquaintance with the
working of tho constitution of Owens College, probtrbly tho
Lost governed nnd most successful scientific institution of
recent times.
The British Museum has from ita first iustitution, in
1723, boon under the government of a board of trustees
including certain family trustees representing the benefactors
of tho Museum. The inestimable services to many branches
of history, learning, and science, which the Museum
has rendered throughout its career of little more than a
century form a sufficient general justification of its mode of
govornance. But it may well be allowed at the same time that
tho repented complaints as to the conservatism and inactivity
. of tho trustees are not without ground. Tho fact that some of
these trustees, to the number of nine, are irrespomible and
irremovable family trustees, and that the remainder consist,
for the most part, of the great officers and dignitaries of the
State, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord
Chancellor, the Speaker, the Secretaries of State, while ouly
ono is nominated by the Queen, and fifteen others are cooptated
bs the met, sufficiently shows that it must be an inert
body. The only infusion of Bcience among so very much
dignity consista in the presidents of the Royal Society, the
Royal College of Physicians, the Society of Antiquaries, and
the Academy. It would surely be an obvious reform,
while retaining the family trustees in accordance with the
nationd compact, to replace many of. the present offi&J
trustees, who cannot possibly have time to attend to vertebrates
and invmtebmtee, by the presidents or representatives of the