Page - 81 - in Nikola Tesla and the Graz Tech

81 After long negotiations between the association and the commission of enquiry on the one hand and the Provincial Committee on the other, a new organic statute was adopted by the Landtag on 21 January 1887, with which the collections united in the Joanneum were to be transformed into a state museum. As a state institution, it was directly subordinated to state representation and the Provincial Committee. The board of trustees, which was abolished in 1866 and now reinstated, was added to it as a permanent advisory board in all Joanneum matters. The latter also had to supervise the activities of the civil servants and custodians and be granted insight into their scholarly activities. The number of collections to be included in the State Museum Joanneum was increased to eleven: 1) Geological-palaeontological collection; 2) Mineralogical collection; 3) Botanical collection; 4) Zoological collection; 5) Prehistorical collection; 6) Coin and antique collection; 7) Collection of works from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and modern times (cultural-historical collection in the narrower sense); 8) Armoury; 9) Picture gallery and gallery of prints; 10) State library; 11) Styrian Provincial Archives (in external association with the Joanneum). The collections were already grouped into a natural sciences, art and history department. The importance of the organic statute lay in the fact that the management of the Joanneum was reorganised and its programmatic scope redefined. In addition it gained a new version of its purpose and self-conception ori- ented towards universality, which, pre-formulated in the founding statutes of 1811, now received its classical and still valid form: ‘The Styrian State Museum should reflect a comprehensive picture of the historical and cul- tural development of the state and its inhabitants and contain as complete a presentation as possible of its natural products. The knowledge of the homeland shall be promoted in all fields of scientific research, and the sense of artistic creation awakened’.