It was at a museum I first learned about the wonders of history, in a small city run museum in my home town, was the very first place I experienced my first museum visit. It was nothing fancy, mostly local history and lore, but there were a lot of artifacts from the natives that lived on the land before the people we called our ancestors settled on the land. Was everything interesting? No, but the few stories and artifacts that were amazing, secrets that if people of back then new would change the very course of history. The privilege of knowing things only people of official status knew back then gave you a sense of pride. This started my love for museums and my sought for knowledge, and so whenever I come across a museum wherever I was, I would go in and learn about the history of the land I stand on.

History connects us all, it allows us to see that humanity originated from practically one point and slowly branched on and on. Our differences only developed after time away from each other, knowing how our culture formed will allow us to see that as we slowly go back a few generations most different cultures originated from a single one, much like how a lot of European languages now are just practically evolved forms of Latin. You can easily read these online or from a book, but museums will allow you to experience it in a way, seeing the artifacts yourself, and sometimes (depending on the museum) you can even touch and examine the artifacts yourself.

Seeing the bones of dinosaurs in a book or video does not allow you the feeling of how grand these creatures was, compared to seeing one in person media often fails (I have yet to try Virtual Reality for this though, maybe it will do a better job). The whole point of going to the museum is to be at the same place as an artifact and learning from it, there is a feeling more grand to learn this compared to a classroom.

It was at a war exhibit that I truly felt how terrible war is, when I learned about the world wars in the classroom I either felt bored or thought how cool it was, when I saw the photos of people and the uniform and belongings of people who lost their lives because of war, I felt a sense of sadness for these people, somehow I felt how much they suffered. Sure you might be able to feel this by watching a movie about the wars, but often times you get distracted by the exaggerations of action, and feeling for your favorite actor, to the point that you forget about the war itself. I have no problem with movies, and they often help people start learning about history, but visiting a museum and seeing things truly related to the wars is a powerful way to not only learn but feel about the things that transpired.

I love museums… it connects us to the past, which in turn connects us to each other.