As a program intern at the Museum of Natural History and hopefully a future program assistant, I am delighted to read responses on this listserv about the importance of education. In my opinion, many of the people working in museums today are still stuck in an elitist attitude. This is evidenced by their unwillingness to educate many types of people through a variety of programs or simply using labels for museum objects. I think one of the primary responsibilities of museums is to educate. Most people would not disagree on this point. However, many people would disagree on how to educate and to what extent museums should educate. I guess I fall to the liberal left on this issue. I think that museums cannot go to far to educate their constituncies. By educating their visitors, museums may and I think do gain a broader constituency. Among the obvious ethical and moral reasons why a museum should broaden its audience is the simple fact that a larger audience brings in more revenue. This is an important fact that should be considered by museum staff who believe in an object based museum. In my opinion, museums that have the widest array of programs are meeting the needs of their community better than the museum that does not or cannot provide this programming. Many museums, in particular MNH focuses on family centered learning. This is not to say that people who are not in the family are not welcomed, in fact quite the opposite is true. However, the reasoning behind targeting familial audiences is that children who have fun learning in a museum environment will hopefully be hooked for life. However, I will get off my soap box and say that I am glad that I subscribed to this newsgroup. I am finding great ideas in museum programming!