“The arrangement and exhibition of specimens designed and carried out by Flower in both instances,” writes Professor Lankester, after alluding to his predecessor’s labours first at the Royal College of Surgeons, and afterwards at the British Museum, “was so definite an improvement on previous methods, that he deserves to be considered as an originator and inventor in museum work. His methods have not only met with general approval, and their application with admiration, but they have been largely adapted and copied by other Curators and Directors of public museums both at home and abroad.” Much has been said with regard to Flower’s views on museum arrangement in the chapter devoted to his official connection with the British Museum. It may, however, be permissible to repeat that in his epoch-making address on museum organisation, delivered before the British Association in 1889, he insisted, in the case of large central public museums, on the absolute necessity of separating the study from the exhibition series; and likewise on the limited number and careful selection of the specimens which should be shown to the public in the latter, and the prime importance of carefully-written and simply-worded descriptive labels for each group of specimens, if not, indeed, for each individual specimen. His idea was, in fact, that the specimens should illustrate the labels rather than the labels the specimens. A limited number, rather than an extensive series, of exhibited specimens, and ample room for each, were also features in his progress of reform. Not less emphatic was Sir William on the importance of combining the extinct with the living forms in our museums; but this, as stated elsewhere, he was unable to carry out in the national collection. It was, however, by no means only in our great national museums that Flower took so much interest, and advocated (and to a great extent succeeded in carrying out) such sweeping and beneficial changes. He was equally convinced of the supreme importance and value, as educating media, of school and county museums, if organised and kept up on proper and rational lines; and he did all that lay in his power to promote the establishment, extension, or development of institutions of this nature.