In this the whole of the ground floor will be devoted to a lecture hall which will accommodate fully 300 people; the first floor will be devoted toa library and reading room, and the next two floors to the museum, thus giving each double the space it now has. Extra floors could be used for a picture gallery and an art museum.
It can safely be guaranteed that, witl such a building and the a quate space it will provide, the library, reading room and museum will be made really attractive. In the museum it is proposed to have a series of cases with Chinese birds and animals set up in their natural surroundings, as they have them in the big museums of Europe and America, while other material will be arranged so as to be of the highest educational value.
Tt does not call for much imagitation to see the value such an, institution must prove to the community at large, especially when it is taken into consideration that the museum is open to the public free of charge, as also is the library of the society, The only vestrietion is that none but members of the society may take bool away from the premises. Even a municipal library and museum could not offer the community more.
One of the greatest wants in Shanghai is an institution of this. sort; afd this react ed here, and whose parents cannot afford to send them to Europe or America where there is a plethora, such educational institutions.
Another of the great wants of this city is an adequate centre of intellectual life. At presen Shanghai is pointed at, almost with the finger of scorn, by every vi ing writer as a city given over wholly to a gay night life and a daily chase of the Almighty Della While 1 for one have stoutly maintained that this is doing the city fu injustice, since there are many residents who feel the lack of intellectual life and activities keenly, the fact remains that there is no adequate building round which such life and activities may gather.
Surely this state of affairs should be remedied, and provides adequate reasons why each member of the community should be willing to ute something towards bringing about that remedy, which is {Just what the Royal Asiatic Society Proposes to do.
Axtuur De C. Sowmsy.
Honorary Curator, R.A.S. Museum Shanghai, Oct. 30, 1930,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.