I was twelve; I was on a field trip; I was climbing through the claustrophobic, pulse-pounding chambers of a two-story human heart.

Sound familiar?

I grew up in the city of the Smithsonians, but the best time I had in a museum when I was a kid was at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

This was more than thirty years ago, but even back then, the Franklin Institute had it right: room after room of hands-on exhibits where you could pound, lift, swing, and shock your way to a better understanding of basic science. That visit turned my understanding of a museum inside out. So what if you couldn’t see the Hope Diamond? What good was the Hope Diamond to a twelve-year-old, anyway?

Kids learn best when they can roll up their sleeves and play with an exhibit, as opposed to just peering at an artifact through thick security glass. The Franklin Institute was a pioneer in hands-on exhibits, an idea that has inspired countless expensive copycat museums across the country.

So it was with some trepidation that I recently returned with our twelve-year-old daughter. How had thirty years changed the place? Would she like it as much as I had? Would the exhibits seem dated? Had the Institute lost its (giant) heart?

I’m happy to report that the two-story heart beats on, a symbol of the intensely creative spirit of the curators. I’ve changed, of course. The chambers and passageways of that big old heart seem a lot smaller these days, and I had a much harder time lifting my own weight in the exhibit on mechanical advantage…

The Institute certainly worked its magic on our daughter, who seemed less like a pre-teen with each new room and more like a curious little monkey.

After a few hours of revisiting old favorites and finding some new ones, I found myself gravitating to the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, a soaring domed room modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, and dominated by James Earle Fraser’s magisterial sculpture of the great man himself. It’s a very special room, and conducive to expanding one’s mind.

Particularly after the explosion of shrill child energy that penetrates every other corner of the Institute…

The great scale of the room and the larger-than-life portrait of one of America’s homegrown geniuses made me feel small again in the best way, the way that encourages one to think and dream big.

We’d come to the Franklin Institute to see how time had treated it, but also to take in a traveling exhibit entitled “Cleopatra: the Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.” My wife had found discount tickets for us, and the show was in its last days. I hadn’t heard much about it, but I was encouraged to see that it was sponsored by National Geographic, another great cultural institution headquartered in my old home town.

The Cleopatra exhibit wasn’t bad. I left knowing a lot more about Cleopatra and the world she inhabited, which is the true measure of any museum exhibit. But I wasn’t crazy about the form the learning took, which seemed a little like an amusement park ride.

First of all, it was expensive, even with coupons. After a lightening of the wallet and a healthy wait in line, the exhibit opens with a short movie, meaning you’re herded into a theater space and made to wait while everyone gets settled. Then, a narrator tells you what you’re going to see and why you’re very privileged to see it.

Movies dominate the entire exhibit, which is peppered with some choice artifacts, it’s true, but no one seems to pay attention to them, since the stillness of an ancient object is no match for a blaring flat-screen TV.

In fact, the focus of the exhibit was as much on the archeologists and curators — who are treated as celebrities in the mini-movies – as it was on Cleopatra herself, one of the most beguiling and powerful women in recorded history.

These two trends – the “Disneyfication” of the museum experience; and the emphasis on the collection and preservation of a subject, rather than the subject itself – seem to be gaining traction these days.

Meanwhile, the Franklin Institute, with its simple idea that science is plenty interesting when people are allowed to discover it on their own terms, is seeming more and more “old school.”

Strange, how the futuristic museum of my childhood is starting to look a little like a dinosaur.

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 13 January 2011

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com