kindled, and complaints encountered in all directions. Authors whose pieces are rejected will be likely, in the course of time, to outnumber those who are admitted to the favored circle; one man has the gratification of seeing his works printed, at the public charge, in a splendid style, and circulated, without trouble or expense on his part, to all the learned societies and persons of Christendom, and of feeling that a world-wide reputation is secured to him, but others, whose treatises have been condemned by a secret tribunal, and returned with the stigma of rejection, are brooding in sullen, or breaking out in vehement resentment and indignation. Men of genius are sensitive; scientific authors and discoverers particularly so. To attain to great excellence in any department, it must be studied and prosecuted with exclusive and all-absorbing zeal. There is a divinity in truth, and whoever attains any portion of it is prone to worship it with a concentrated devotion, and to cherish it as more precious than all things else. However minute the objects, or narrow the provinces, or apparently useless the results of the researches of the man of science, he is wholly wrapt up in them, and feels, to his very heart's core, that nothing transcends them in importance. This makes him sensitive to reputation, tenacious of rights, and morbidly alive to any encroachment upon his labors or attainments. No office is more thankless than to attempt to arbitrate the differences of men of science; no offence more keenly resented than to discredit their claims or slight their productions. It is a curious circumstance, and most instructive in this connexion, strikingly illustrating the fact we are presenting, that James Smithson, who was a fellow of the Royal Society, had made a will, leaving his whole fortune to that institution, which had honored many of his productions by publishing them in its transactions. At length, certain papers offered to them for publication were refused. Under the sting of resentment and wounded pride, he changed his will, and left his fortune to the United States of America. In this way a harvest of dissatisfaction and animosities is constantly maturing. Patronage in politics is the fatal bane of parties. In literature and science it works disastrously, in all directions, upon him who dispenses, upon those who receive, and upon all from whom it is withheld. The organization of the Smithsonian Institution is as follows: The "Establishment," by the name of the "Smithsonian Institution." FRANKLIN PIERCE, President of the United States. Vice President of the United States. WILLIAM L. MARCY, Secretary of State. ROGER B. TANEY, Chief Justice of the United States. JOHN T. TOWERS, Mayor of the city of Washington. HONORARY MEMBERS. ROBERT HARE. BOARD OF REGENTS. Vice President of the United States. ROGER B. TANEY, Chief Justice of the United States. GIDEON HAWLEY, citizen of New York. J. MACPHERSON BERRIEN, citizen of Georgia. ALEXANDER D. BACHE, member of the National Institute, Washington. The active government of the Institution is in the hands of the following officers and committees: FRANKLIN PIERCE, Ex-officio Presiding Officer of the Institution. JOSEPH HENRY, Secretary of the Institution. Assistant Secretary, in charge of Library. SPENCER F. BAIRD, Assistant Secretary, in charge of the Museum. The committee feel it their duty to submit a few remarks in relation to this organization. It appears by the evidence that so much of it as is called the "Establishment," has never performed any part whatever in the administration of the Institution. It is obvious that those regents who reside at a great distance from Washington can have but little to do with its management. Those of them who are members of the Senate or House of Representatives, unless their residence during the recess of Congress is in the vicinity of Washington, cannot be expected, for the most part, to have that influence over its operations which those who reside permanently at the seat of government, or in its immediate vicinity, will more naturally exercise. The executive committee is the body in which the government substantially exists. It may well be questioned whether it is expedient to surround such an institution with an array of high official dignitaries. Their great offices and characters are committed to all the proceedings of the Institution, while it is impossible for them to give much time and attention to their examination. When the venerable chief justice of the United States, after hearing both parties and a thorough scrutiny of the merits of all questions involved, and in the exercise of the high function to which his life is consecrated and set apart, pronounces a solemn judgment from the bench, we bow to his learning and wisdom; but it may, perhaps, be doubted whether it is expedient to attempt to make him responsible for all the doings of an Institution entirely out of the sphere of his duties and pursuits, and with whose officers he cannot have much communication. As it has been ascertained that the Institution is not a corporation, and its anomalous character, in that respect, may give rise to perplexing and unforeseen difficulties that will reach the legal tribunals, it may well be questioned whether that august judicial personage ought to be mixed up, at all, with its business details. If the Institution could be organized in a simpler form, and its secretary made the head of a bureau in the Department of the Interior, and subject, like other heads of bureaus, to the Secretary of the Interior, he might pursue substantially the same course as at present, if that should continue to be thought advisable, with a clearly ascertained line of duty and responsibility, and a full adjustment of all his relations, above to the head of the department, around to his associates, and to all subordinates of every grade. This, however, we desire to have considered as a mere suggestion, made in passing. If all other plans are found defective, and beset with inconveniences, this may, at some future day, be tried in the last resort. Whatever arrangements may be made for the administration of the Institution, it is of extreme importance that the relations among the several officers attached to it be defined and settled by law, or, at any rate, by bye-laws. In every organization, to which several officers are attached, such a provision is highly desirable, but pre-eminently so where the said officers are gentlemen of scientific and literary attainment and reputation. The spirit of self-respect and a sensitiveness to personal rights prevail nowhere with greater keenness and intensity than in the republic of letters. The Smithsonian Institution stands on a different footing from any in this country, and in some particulars, especially in regard to the peculiar character of our government, in any other country. In some leading features it perhaps bears a closer resemblance to the British Museum than to any other. The recent history of that institution may, perhaps, be found instructive to us. The British Museum was founded about a hundred years ago, upon the conditional bequest by an individual of property less in amount than the bequest of Smithson. It has since received some two millions of pounds sterling of the public funds. Within the last twenty years there have been two select committees of the House of Commons and one royal commission appointed to inquire into the condition, management, and affairs of this institution. Its government is vested in a board of trustees, in number forty-eight, one of whom (H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge) is directly named by the crown, twenty-three are regents ex officio, nine are named by the representatives or executors of parties who have been donors to the institution, and fifteen are elected. The following is a list of the trustees: EX OFFICIO. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker of the House of Commons, principal trustees; the President of the Council; the First Lord of the Treasury; the Lord Privy Seal; the First Lord of the Admiralty; the Lord Steward; the Lord Chamberlain; the Colonial Secretary of State; the Foreign Secretary of State; the Home Secretary of State; the Bishop of London; the Chancellor of the Exchequer; the Lord Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench; the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; the Master of the Rolls; the Attorney General; the Solicitor General; the President of the Royal Society; the President of the College of Physicians; the President of the Society of Antiquaries; the President of the Royal Academy. FAMILY TRustees. The Earl of Cadogan, Lord Stanley, Sloane family; George Booth Tyndale, esq., Rev. Francis Annesley, Cotton family; Lord H. W. Bentinck, the Earl of Cawdor, Harlein family; Charles Townley, esq., Townley family; the Earl of Elgin, Elgin family; John Knight, esq.. Knight family. ELECTED TRUSTEES. The Earl of Aberdeen; the Earl of Derby; the Duke of Rutland; the Marquis of Lansdowne; Sir Robert Peel, bart.; the Duke of Hamilton; Sir Robert H. Inglis, bart.; Henry Hallam, esq.; William R. Hamilton, esq.; the Duke of Sutherland; the Right Hon. T. B. Macaulay; William Buckland, D.D., Dean of Westminster; the Right Hon. Sir David Dundas; the Right Hon. H. Goulburn; the Marquis of Northampton. Complaints against the management of the institution became so prevalent that, notwithstanding the mighty array of elevated functionaries, and illustrious literary and scientific persons behind which it was entrenched, it became necessary for the House of Commons to turn its attention to it. On the 27th of March, 1835, it was ordered in the House of Commons, "that a select committee be appointed to inquire into the condition, management, and affairs of the British Museum," with power to send for persons and papers. The committee consisted of thirty-three, including many of the leading men of the House. The committee held nineteen meetings, and on the 6th of August, 1835, reported a mass of testimony making a folio volume of 623 pages. On the 11th of February, 1836, the subject was again taken up, and became the occasion of a debate. Among other complaints made by members, it was affirmed that the statement made by Sir Humphrey Davy was correct, "that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons were considered as the real acting governors of the institution." A new committee of fifteen was appointed, composed of distinguished persons, and authorized to send for persons, papers, and records. It held twenty-eight meetings, and reported to the House of Commons on the 14th day of July, 1836. Certain improvements were made in the condition of the institution, as the result of these parliamentary proceedings. The public mind seems to have become again excited on the subject, by complaints arising from the community and from officers of the institution; and in 1847 a royal commission was formed, consisting of four noblemen and eight commoners, all eminent persons. They prosecuted their researches with great diligence, and the result of their labors, in 1850, was a folio volume of more than 1,000 pages. The whole number of questions and answers is 10,933. The chairman of the commission was the Earl of Ellesmere. He presented an elaborate, full, and independent report. One or two extracts may be read with advantage by those who have the management of literary and scientific institutions. "Such a board of trustees, to any one who considers the individuals who compose it, with reference to their rank, intelligence and ability, would give assurance rather than promise of the most unexceptionable, and, indeed, wisest administration in every department. High attainments in literature and in science, great knowledge and experience of the world and its affairs, and practiced habits of business, distinguish many of them in an eminent degree; and it would be unjust either to deny the interest which all of them feel in the prosperity of the institution, or refrain from acknowledging the devoted services which some of them have rendered in its administration. But, on the other hand, absorbing public cares, professional avocations, and the pursuits of private life, must, in many instances, prevent those individuals whose assistance might have been best relied on from giving anything like continued attention to the affairs of the institution." While the report alludes, in the above language, to the inability of such official persons, in general, to attend with sufficient particularity to any extra business, incidental to affairs out of the sphere of their more appropriate duties, it makes an exception in favor of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, in the words of the report, "gave to its affairs more time and attention than we could have supposed it possible for a person the most active to have spared from his momentous and sacred duties." The commissioners dwell at length upon the fact that the trustees were not in the habit of communicating directly with any other officers of the institution but the secretary, as in the following passage: "The secretary attends all the meetings, and the officers of the establishment, generally, are perfectly aware of the extent of his influ |