It is precisely in order to be able to locate and describe the instrument collection’s historical
trajectory through this imaginary force field - although one must not forget that the force field
itself changed shape over the years as the Bennettian form of “museum” became ever more
dominant for instance — that its curators’ stance on the value of knowledge and, by extension,
“the public” is of crucial importance.
A large number of recent publications have been devoted to the larger issue of the relation
between science and the “public” in history.25 After it has now been repeatedly pointed out
how both these terms acquired new connotations as the 19**1 century progressed, it will not
come as much of a surprise that one of the most fundamental questions many of these
publications address is how to deal with this.26 To some extent, Cunningham’s and Williams’
concept of the “invention of science” can help come to terms with the basic gist of what was
happening, and help see how this is relevant to the history of museums, and the history of
Teylers Museum’s instrument collection in particular.
Recall that, according to Williams and Cunningham, science was increasingly equated with a
timeless, absolute methodology that would lead to universal knowledge claims, or “the truth”.
Certainly this was the case in those areas of study that came to be subsumed under the
heading of “physics”.27 (Not entirely coincidentally, this new definition of “science” roughly
coincided with the gradual equation of “art” with the “fine arts”, another development that
had a bearing on the development of “art museums” and therefore also Teylers Museum.28) In
the most general of terms, one can say that - crucially - this “invention of science” brought
about an increasingly pronounced distinction between amateur and specialist practitioners of
the experimental sciences. This in turn was reflected in the emergence of a new genre within
literature, that of popular science. Books that fell into this genre provided watered down
versions of what was discussed amongst specialists, in the more exclusive specialist literature.
This was essentially a new phenomenon, and certainly unprecedented on such a large scale.29
This is not to say that natural phenomena, i.e. what would later become “scientific”
phenomena, had already proved to be highly entertaining and could draw huge crowds of
clueless but completely intrigued spectators i t h e public lecturers of the 18th century so
For a recent overview o f debates see Topham, “Rethinking the History o f Science Popularization 7 Popular
Science. ’ These studies should not be confused with the Public Understanding o f Science, which is all about
how to improve current outreach work.
One o f the most frequently cited works in this regard is: James A. Secord, “Halifax Keynote Address:
Knowledge in Transit, Isis 95 (2004): 654—672. Secord sees all science as a communicative process, with
knowledge “circulating”. One critical question is in how far this approach focuses too much on “contested
knowledge”, and can provide the basis for a world view in which there is no “uncontested knowledge” at all
(such as, for example, that objects don’t fall “up”).
On the changing definition and status o f “physics” in the 19th century see for instance: Iwan Rhys Morus,
When Physics Became King (Chicago; London: Univ. o f Chicago Press, 2005).
28 On this see for instance: Paul Oskar Kristeller, ‘The Modem System o f the Arts: A Study in the History of
Aesthetics Part I,” Journal o f the History o f Ideas 12, no. 4 (1951): 496-527; Paul Oskar Kristeller, “The
Modem System o f the Arts: A Study in the History o f Aesthetics Part 2,” Journal o f the History o f Ideas 13 no
1 (1952): 17-46.
Frans van Lunteren, ‘“God is groot en wij begrijpen Hem niet’: Kaisers populaire sterrenkunde en het einde
van de fysiko-theologie,” Studium: tijdschrift voor wetenschaps- en universiteitsgeschiedenis 4, no. 2 (2011):
85-104. A random example o f popular science from before the 19th century is the frequently reprinted book
Newtonianism fo r Ladies and Other Uneducated Souls by Francesco Algarotti. The emergence o f an entire new
genre o f “popular science” in the 19th century also has a lot to do with printing becoming easier and cheaper.
typical of the Netherlands are a prime example;30 but the clarity of this distinction between
amateurs and specialists, and the fact that it was purportedly drawn up purely on meritocratic
grounds was new.
What is important with regard to Teylers Museum’s instrument collection is that,
simultaneously, museums were taking on their role as pedagogical instruments of cultural
policy, designed to draw large crowds. Although one has to be careful not to succumb to a
ideological analysis of history, one can say that, as the 19th century progressed and
practitioners of the experimental sciences increasingly defined themselves as members of an
elite group of specialists, i.e. “scientists” (consensus has it that the term was first introduced
by William Whewell in the 1830s), and as they increasingly tried to bolster their social status
by driving home the point that “science” was academic, i.e. disinterested and scholarly in
nature, thereby trying to cash in on the prestige reserved for members of academia, it was sort
of only a matter of time before they discovered “museums” as one of the means to achieve
these ends. More specifically, the display strategies and the behavioural conventions that had
been developed for art museums and had helped turn these into the Bennettian epitomes of
higher (again, read: bourgeois) culture were discovered to be applicable to objects from the
world of science and engineering too. It is this above all that distinguishes the wave of newly
founded science museums (such as, for instance, the Deutsches Museum in Munich) from all
earlier forms of exhibitions containing scientific instruments (or rather “philosophical”
instruments, as they were referred to at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851).
Having now pointed out and summarized some of the general issues that need to be taken into
account when studying the history of any museum, particularly those housing scientific
collections, the ultimate question is of course how these challenges are met in the following
study of the history of Teylers Museum.
As far as the issue of the changing definition of “museums” is concerned, the approach is to
see Teylers Museum primarily not as a museum, but as a collection; more precisely, a
collection that changes its guise, gradually becoming a “museum” in the 19th century sense of
the word. The extent to which the instrument collection in particular was affected by this
changing guise is one of the fundamental questions addressed through this study.
V. To Whom It May Concern
Having now introduced the object of this study, i.e. Teylers Museum, having drawn attention
to the multi-layered complexity of the term “museum”, and having explained what this study
aims to achieve, it is furthermore important to explain whom this study is intended to benefit.
30 See for instance: Lissa Roberts, “Science Becomes Electric: Dutch Interaction with the Electrical Machine
During the Eighteenth Century,” Isis 90, no. 4 (1999): 680-714.