Firstly the British had to displace the binary of the colonizer or colonized and undo the science or magic opposition in order to incorporate their ideas into colonial India. In order for the natives to understand the theories and methods behind Science it had to be performed as magic, then only could it establish its authority. Western Science also faced the problem of translation. Indians had to have the capacity for understanding if they were to be made into modern subjects. .
Key examples can be seen at the end of the nineteenth century, the establishment of museums and exhibitions functioned as instruments of the civilising mission. To know was to name, identify and compare, the introduction of museums .
Enabled Indians to feel and see the objects on display providing visual aids in order to further their knowledge. The museums were also vital as they provided order by naming, classifying and displaying Indian artefacts'. The museums focussed on displaying natural collections, as the conception was that India was close to nature as its inhabitants lived close to soil. Same things are called by different names and different things by same names required persistent classification. It seems the main aim of pedagogy was to teach peasants by displaying their own products and organising them into scientific classification. The magnitude of the success of such museums can be displayed when looking at the Calcutta Museum, which drew between 505000 and 829000 visitors annually. The collection of human crania posed a problem for many exhibitions, as people did not agree with parting with them. In many instances the natives were placed in stalls, interrogated and photographed and were referred to as biped specimen. .
Although there was a popularity of such exhibitions, Museums and exhibitions faced a problem. They needed the objects to reveal something more abstract and universal. They needed the objects of native provenance to strike the viewer as science.