ABSTRACT
Thomas Greenwood, considered the leading trade journalist in early twentieth-century England, was a great promoter of the public library as an educational resource for enabling the working-class to self-educate. Greenwood linked increase in knowledge with improved social behavior and thus saw the museum as another site for promoting social reform. In the article excerpted below he likens the public museum to a library, fi lled with objects instead of books, and contends that museums should be recognized as occupying a place in the national education system. He suggests how exhibits might be designed, organized, and labeled to better facilitate informal learning and to avoid “museum drunkenness,” or what is known today as museum fatigue.
