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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. 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.

The

"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

ence and control over the business, while he has no direct responsibility for the conduct or actual state of any department.

"There may be many cases, certainly, in which it is not expedient only, but necessary that the board should deliberate in the absence. even of the principal librarian, or of the heads of departments; but there must be exceptional cases, and considering the persons who are heads of departments, and the knowledge and ability by which they are and ought to be distinguished, it seems impossible to suppose that the trustees would not derive the greatest assistance from immediate, full and unreserved communication with them on questions arising in the administration of their respective departments. We find, however, there is scarcely one of the highest officers of the institution who has not complained of systematic exclusion from the board when the affairs of his department are under consideration, as equally disparaging to himself and injurious to the interests of the department, giving no opportunity of explaining their reports or meeting the objections and criticisms to which they may have been subject; and their own absence, joined to that of the principal librarian, leaves them under the painful but natural impression, where their suggestions are disallowed, that the interests with which they are charged have not been fully represented. We cannot but ascribe to this cause the unfortunate and unseemly jealousies which the evidence shows to have long existed among the principal officers of the museum. Their distrust in the security of the means by which they communicate with the board, their misgivings as to the fullness and fairness of the consideration which their suggestions receive, and their feelings of injustice done to their own department, arising, it may be, from an over zeal for its interests, or over estimate of its importance."

Finally, they use this language in reference to what they judge to be the too overshadowing power allowed to the secretary by the trus

tees:

"From his control of the business, constant intercourse with the trustees, and attendance at all their meetings, he has risen to be the most important officer in the establishment, though without that responsibility which attached to the principal librarian and the heads of departments. The influence possessed by this officer in the affairs of the museum has followed the usual course where the secretary is permanent, and where the administrative board is fluctuating, and must depend mainly upon the secretary for the information required in the dispatch of ordinary business."-(Report of commission.)

The case of the British museum confirms the conviction that whatever power is lodged in the secretary, and we do not advise to encroach upon or to diminish his authority, it is all-important to have it defined and guided, and guarded by express regulation. Gentlemen of edu cation and refined sensibilities will be willing to conform to rules in the shape of law, but will always reluct against, and resent the exercise of absolute and unrestrained power. Every American heart instinctively resists arbitary authority-no reasonable mind objects to conformity to established regulations, and obedience to defined, permanent, and uniform rules. Beyond those rules the rights of a subordinate officer are as perfect as those of any other man. Within them he feels

that it is no degradation to obey. It is not at all improbable, that many of the difficulties that have been encountered in the British Museum and in the Smithsonian Institution have arisen, not so much from lodging too much power in the secretary, as from the absence of byelaws, fully defining the powers, duties, and relations of all the officers employed in them. The committee is particularly desirous to have it understood that they feel justified in expressing a very decided opinion that the difficulties that have arisen, and which the evidence sufficiently. discloses, in the bosom of the Institution, and the dissatisfaction that may exist in some portions of the community, may safely be attributed to the causes just mentioned, and not in the least to any want of fidelity or zeal on the part of its managers.

As it respects the general policy advocated by the friends of a library to make it the prominent feature of the Smithsonian Institution, the committee are of opinion that the funds of the Institution are sufficient to accomplish that object at a more rapid rate of gradual accumulation than heretofore, without essentially impairing the usefulness and efficacy of the policy pursued at present by the managers. Active operations, original researches, and the publication of scientific treatises, if the whole income were consumed in them, would have to be confined far within the limits of what would be desirable. A limitation must be suffered at some point within the income; and the satisfaction of the country is of greater importance than a few thousand dollars, more or less, expended in either direction..

But a few words are needed to do justice to the value of a great universal library at the metropolis of the Union. Every person who undertakes to prepare and publish a book on any subject will be found to bear testimony to the need of such a library. The great historians and classical writers of the country have to send abroad, often to go abroad in person, in order to obtain materials for their works. All literary men are eager to inspect catalogues and explore alcoves in the prosecution of their favorite departments, and there is no direction in which they are more tempted to drain their generally quite moderate resources than in the purchase of books. Such a library as would be accumulated by an appropriation of $20,000 annually for twenty years, judiciously expended, would be frequented by scholars and authors in much larger numbers than persons not acquainted with their wants will be likely to suppose. In half a century it would give to America a library unequalled in value, and probably in size, in the world.

There is a special reason why such a library should be provided at this seat of the federal government. The annals of all other countries, running back into the past, are soon shrouded in fable or lost in total darkness; but ours, during their whole duration, are within the range of unclouded history. The great social, moral, and political experiment here going on, to test the last hope of humanity, is capable of being described in clear and certain records. The history of each State and Territory can be written on the solid basis of ascertained facts. In each State and Territory there are, and, from the first, have been, many persons who are preparing, and have published, works illustrative of the entire progress of those respective communities. In local histories, commemorative addresses, and the vast variety of pro

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