semi-annually on the first day of January and July; and the said officers shall be removable by the Board of Regents whenever, in their judgment, the interests of the Institution require any of the said officers to be changed.

SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the members and honorary members of said institution may hold such stated and special meetings, for the supervision of the affairs of said Institution and the advice and instruction of said Board of Regents, to be called in the manner provided for in the by laws of said Institution, at which the President, and, in his absence, the Vice President, of the United States shall preside. And the said Regents shall make, from the interest of said fund, an appropriation, not exceeding an average of twenty-five thousand dollars annually, for the gradual formation of a library composed of valuable works pertaining to all departments of human knowledge.

SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That of any other moneys which have accrued, or shall hereafter accrue, as interest upon the said Smithsonian fund, not herein appropriated, or not required for the purposes herein provided, the said managers are hereby authorized to make such disposal as they shall deem best suited for the promotion of the purpose of the testator, anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding.

SEC. 10. And be it further enacted, That the author or proprietor of any book, map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, or engraving, for which a copyright shall be secured under the existing acts of Congress, or those which shall hereafter be enacted respecting copyrights, shall, within three months from the publication of said book, map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, or engraving, deliver, or cause to be delivered, one copy of the same to the librarian of the Smithsonian Institution, and one copy to the librarian of the Congress library, for the use of the said libraries.

SEC. 11. And be it further enacted, That there is reserved to Congress the right of altering, amending, adding to, or repealing any of the provisions of this act: Provided, That no contract, or individual right, made or acquired under such provisions, shall be thereby divested or impaired.

Approved August 10, 1846.

The foregoing act of Congress is "the law establishing the Smithsonian Institution." It is the directory which the Regents are bound to follow in administering its affairs and applying its funds. An idea seems to have crept into the discussions that are prevalent on this subject, that the will requires one thing and the law another. There can be no ground for this distinction, as a few words will show.

The will declares a certain object, namely, "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.' In accepting the bequest, the government of the United States pledged its faith that the funds should be "applied as Congress may hereafter direct, to the purposes of founding and endowing at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

The act establishing the institution also inserts into its title, and into

its body, the words of the will, so that whatever the will requires the act ordains, and there can be no conflict between them. No one can question the obligation of those who administer the institution, under the act, to assume that its requirements are in accordance with the will, and to carry them out, in good faith and good earnest. So far as the act leaves the officers, who exist by its authority, to their discretion, that discretion is to be guided by their sense of the import and design of the language of the will. All in the will that relates to the subject is incorporated into the act. We have occasion, therefore, to look only at the act, in ascertaining the duty of those who administer the affairs of the institution, and there can be no ground for a controversy in reference to the meaning of the will, as against the act, or

vice versa.

The will and the two acts of Congress that have been spread out on the foregoing pages in full, interpret themselves to the common sense and adequate apprehension of every reader. It is only necessary to regard the words as used in their ordinary sense, to avoid a mental interpolation of language not in the text, and to allow its natural meaning to flow out from all the language used in the instrument. In this spirit of fair and unstrained interpretation, we propose to consider for a moment the language of the act establishing the Smithsonian Institution, of which different and conflicting interpretations are advocated. The word "INCREASE" is held by some of the zealous combatants in the Smithsonian controversy to be identical with "DISCOVERY." The idea seems to be that knowledge can only be increased by the discovery of new truth. This is an arbitrary and untenable position. A mind experiences an increase of knowledge if it knows more than it did before, although all the ideas it has received may be in the commonest text-books. There has been an increase of knowledge in the school, in the congregation, in the lecture room, if ideas not before known to them have been received into the minds of the hearers; even, indeed, it matters not if those ideas have been recorded for thousands of years in languages, classical or sacred, that have been dead long ago. Knowledge has been increased, if one mind has received more, whether it be new or old truth. The language of Smithson is perfectly simple, and in its natural sense covers the whole ground-it includes, but does not require new truth. Truth discovered a thousand years ago is as good as truth discovered yesterday. Knowledge embraces it all alike, and Smithson's object was to carry knowledge where it was not before, and to increase it where it was; to spread it over a wider area, and to a greater depth.

In like manner a particular meaning has been crowded upon the word "KNOWLEDGE"not its ordinary meaning in common usage, but a narrow, technical, and special meaning. This has been done by confounding it with "SCIENCE." It is true that, in their primitive origin, or roots, in the languages from which they are derived, these words may be identical in their meaning, but not so as actually used in common conversation and familiar and general literature. "Knowledge" is all-comprehensive, embracing science, art, literature, politics, business, the whole world of nature and culture, the entire realm of facts and reality, all ages and all that they have contained. "Science" is

almost universally employed to denote those branches of knowledge which are systematized into a distinct organization or arrangement, based upon definite principles, and reduced to particular rules. In the progress of knowledge new sciences are added to the list, and in the establishment of new classifications the boundary lines are altered. There is a vast amount of knowledge not included in any science. Further, the word science is sometimes used to embrace only a part of what, in a broader sense, is included in the sciences. It is getting to become quite generally used to denote what are called the physical sciences, excluding political, moral, and intellectual science-excluding history, the arts, and all general literature. Surely, it cannot be maintained that "knowledge" was used by Smithson as merely iden tical with "science" in this last mentioned and most limited sense.

The words "among men" were used merely to corroborate the idea expressed by the word "diffusion." They do not necessarily imply that the institution should confine itself to world-wide operations. The word is not, as some seem to suppose, "mankind," but "men;" and he diffuses knowledge "among men" as truly, and in as full a sense, when he enlightens the minds of his neighbors, as of persons at the farthest pole. He best fulfils the idea of Smithson who increases human intelligence, whenever and wherever he has an opportunity, in every circle of influence, however near or however remote.

The 7th section of the act establishing the institution has given occasion to a difference of interpretation that has been brought to the notice of the committee. The section relates to the duties and powers of the secretary, and goes on to say that "the said secretary shall also discharge the duties of librarian and keeper of the museum, and may, with the consent of the Board of Regents, employ assistants; and the said officers shall receive for their services such sums as may be allowed by the Board of Regents, to be paid semi-annually on the first days of January and July; and the said officers shall be removable by the Board of Regents whenever, in their judgment, the interests of the institution require any of the said officers to be changed."

The committee cannot but think it strange that, in the face of this express language, it has been made a question where the power of removal is lodged. "Said officers shall be removable by the Board of Regents." Can anything be plainer? In defence of the idea that the secretary can remove his assistants, a practice is cited in certain departments of the government where the power of removal is exercised by intermediate officials. But there is no analogy, inasmuch as the Constitution of the United States is silent in reference to the removal of such officers. But the constitution of the Smithsonian Institution is not silent, but expressly defines in whom the power to remove the assistants of the secretary resides-namely, in the Board of Regents. They have no more right to delegate, or pass over to another that power, than they have to transfer any of their other functions.

The concluding sentence of the 8th section of the act is as follows: "And the said regents shall make, from the interest of said fund, an appropriation not exceeding an average of twenty-five thousand dollars annually, for the gradual formation of a library, composed of valuable works pertaining to all departments of human knowledge."

The expression, "not exceeding," is in constant use in the legislation. of Congress, and in all legislation everywhere, in which appropriations are made, and it will not be disputed that, in all instances, the expectation and general understanding of the legislature is, that about the amount thus specified will be expended-the word "average" can only be considered as indicating the expectation of the legislature that the sum expended in some years might exceed twenty-five thousand dollars-the word was used in order to give the managers authority, in case a sum less than $25,000 were expended one year, to expend just so much more the next, and vice versa. No doubt, we think, can be entertained that the framers and enactors of the law expected that about $200,000 would be expended "for the gradual formation of a library, composed of valuable works pertaining to all departments of human knowledge," in eight years. If the law does not contemplate that the annual expenditure for the formation of a library shall be something like $25,000, any other figures might as well have been used. If the administrators of the law are at liberty to spend as little as they may please for a library, in the face of the sum thus indicated in the law, they would have been equally at liberty whatever sum might have been named, whether $30,000 or $40,000. In other words, if the clause of the act under consideration can be construed as justifying an annual average expenditure for the gradual formation of a library of less than $2,000, any intermediate sum between that and the entire income of the fund would have been of equal authority and significance, as indicating the intention of the legislature, whichever of the said intermediate sums might have been inserted in the act. That is to say-those who maintain that the language and design of the act are carried out by expending less than $2,000 annually for books, assume and assert that it would not have altered the sense of the act had $2,000 or $10,000 or $40,000 been the sum actually named in it, instead of $25,000!

The 9th section of the act is as follows:

"And be it further enacted, That of any other moneys which have accrued, or shall hereafter accrue, as interest upon the said Smithsonian fund, not herein appropriated, or not required for the purposes herein provided, the said managers are hereby authorized to make such disposal as they shall deem best suited for the promotion of the purpose of the testator, anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding."

The discretion allowed to the managers in the latter part of this section, must be considered as limited, in some sense, by the word "other," applied to "moneys," and more definitely and more absolutely by the clauses, "not herein appropriated," and "not required for the purpose herein provided."

The meaning of the 9th section seems to us to be simply this-that if, after all has been done required by the foregoing provisions of the act, that is, for the maintenance and preservation of a geological and mineralogical cabinet, a laboratory, library, gallery of art, lecture room, lectures, the purchase of books on the scale indicated in the 8th section, and the discharge of all current obligations, an unexpended balance of the annual income remains, the managers may do with it Rep. 141-2

just what they please; may expend it upon books if they like, even although the expenditures for that object may have already reached the assigned limit, or upon any objects not named or alluded to in the act, if, in their judgment "suited for the promotion of the purpose of the tes

tator."

The committee are wholly unwilling to enter at all into the discussion of the private grievances, or personal controversies, or official misunderstandings which were brought before them in the course of the investigation. They regard the evidence that was educed on these matters as important only because it illustrates the difficulties encountered in administering an institution of this sort upon the plan that has been attempted. They are particularly desirous to have it understood that they attach no blame to any person, in any quarter; the evils are the result of the system. At the same time they do not cast blame or censure of any sort upon those who suggested, and have labored to carry out, that system. The design was, in itself, commendable and elevated. It has, unquestionably, been pursued with zeal, sincerity, integrity, and high motives and aims, but it is, we think, necessarily surrounded with very great difficulties.

There is nothing in our constitutional system that authorizes this government to enter the sphere of literature and science. Education is left to the States. This government cannot, without violating the principles on which it rests, become, directly or indirectly, through its official agents or in the expenditure of funds, a censor of any department of the press, an arbiter of science, or a publisher of works of mere literature or philosophy any more than of morals or theology.

No amount of money that could possibly be raised would enable this government to perform these functions, with a just, equal, and liberal hand, for the benefit of all departments of knowledge. Of course, it has no right to make discriminations; not only natural history and physical science, but every branch of learning and inquiry has a right to demand patronage, if it is extended to any. Whatever project in this line may be attempted will be found surrounded with insuperable embarrassments. If, for instance, the funds of the Smithsonian Institution should be appropriated in the manner proposed in the petition from citizens of Missouri, referred to this committee, for the preparation and distribution of a monthly report of the general progress of knowledge, who shall write those reports? To what school of philosophy. or medicine, or politics shall he belong? Shall he confine himself. as the Smithsonian Institution has, for the most part, very wisely done, to particular provinces of natural science, to reptiles, defunct species of animals, mathematical and astronomical computations and researches. to aboriginal antiquities and the glossaries of vanishing tribes of Indians, or shall he rise above dead and brute nature, and treat the subject of MAN, of civil society, of government, of politics, and religion? If he confines himself to the former, not one in ten thousand of the people will be interested or satisfied; if he attempts the latter, he is on forbidden ground, and cannot escape being torn to pieces by parties, sects, and sections.

Moving in the most cautious manner, acting within the most limited sphere, grudges are multiplied, jealousies engendered, resentments