I shall therefore point out very briefly the great benefit which the British Museum, the institution with which I am best acquainted, might derive from incorporating photography as an organised part of its system, instead of taking the photographer up to lay him down again. I shall next adduce several instances within my own knowledge in which cheap photography would have been of material benefit to individual frequenters of the Museum; sufficient, it seems to me, to justify the conclusion that a public need exists, to supply which might be profitable even in a pecuniary sense. Lastly, I shall look beyond the needs of any individual library, or any particular class of customers, and endeavour to point out ways in which a national photographic institution, preferably, I think, placed in connection with the British Museum, might subserve public objects of paramount importance. I have said that, to be adopted to any purpose by a public institution, photography must become a portion of the organism of the institution itself. That is, the institution must be the photographer's employer, not his customer. If otherwise, all sorts of needful but troublesome official formalities must exist, which combine with the obstacle of expense to reduce photographic enterprise to a minimum. If a complicated piece of official machinery has to be set in motion every time a photograph is wanted, whether by a public department or a private individual, the want is not likely to be often acknowledged, much less when a moderate outlay will soon bring both to the end of their tether. Abolish the relations of tradesman and customer, pay the photographer once for all by an adequate salary, provide apparatus and chemicals with sufficient liberality, and you at once cut off whatever has hitherto hindered and arrested the enlistment of the art in the service of culture. Instead of an artist working now and then as he may happen to get an order, which he seldom does except in absolutely urgent cases, you have one bound to devote the whole of his time to earning a moderate fixed salary, and, if he is the right sort of man, making it his pride and pleasure to do so. Instead of an institution doing comparatively little work, and supported by the reluctant contributions of comparatively few customers, you have one supported on a large scale at a cost individually imperceptible. Instead of heads of departments considering how little they can manage to spend, you will have them encouraged to tax their new auxiliary's resources to the utmost by the consideration that, the prime elements of expense being eliminated, it will, in fact, hardly be possible to spend anything. Here I may be met by an objection which deserves a reply. "Granting," it may be said, "the propriety of employing the photographer for strictly national purposes, why tax the entire community, however lightly, for the benefit of the small portion of it which may happen to want photographs? Is it right to