V - THE MASTER'S REPORT (1884)

Summary

1. The main matter of the following report was ready for publication before Christmas of 1883; but in the hope of getting the accounts into clearer form than that with which I was obliged to be content, at our meeting on 4th December last year, I lost myself, day after day, among spitefully irreconcilable sums, and sorrowfully unintelligible scraps of memoranda,—until the debates between the good people of Sheffield and me concerning the investment of our Museum property had reached a position of which it was useless to give any report till I had come to final decision.

My first idea had been that the Guild, in this and other like cases, might undertake, as its funds increased, to present every museum built under its direction on a moderate, and finally limited, scale, by the municipalities of provincial towns, with such objects of art and natural history as might be most attractive, and in elementary study normally instructive, to their working population. But the great value of the objects already placed in the Sheffield collection, and the necessity, with the difficulty, of securing their safety and usefulness, by consistent vigilance in custody, and attention in exhibition, compelled me to reconsider the whole subject on a broader footing; and to determine finally that the Guild should never part with any unreplaceable property, but only lend, as the National Gallery now lends, the unique objects of educational value it possesses, or may possess, to such institutions and for such times as the observed custody and evident use of such articles might justify: but that, for the most part, its Museum buildings should be on its own ground, and under the care of its own officers.