the path of genius? What more consonant to the intention of the founder? An expedition is setting out, and instruments are required to investigate the magnetism of the earth, the temperature of the ocean, the climate, soil, and productions of places explored, their latitudes and longitudes, heights, &c. These instruments are lent or furnished by the Smithsonian Institution, and the results obtained with them become public property. Means are furnished to explorers to make collections of minerals and ores; of plants and animals; of fishes, reptiles, and insects; and to provide for their transportation from the field. These collections are submitted to the most successful cultivators of the branches of science to which they belong to men who have made these objects their especial study, and their investigations are made public. The specimens are returned to the Smithsonian collections to be taken care of, and, perhaps, to be re-examined at some more advanced period. By these and similar modes research is stimulated. The provision of meteorological instruments, and of instructions for their use; the collections of the observations made, and their comparisons, have already furnished most important information in regard to the climate and storms of the United States, and the full publication of the results will enable men of science, of this and other countries, to draw from these materials most valuable inferences and laws.

2. To diffuse knowledge, by the publication of the contributions, from researches and explorations, of reports on treatises on different subjects or branches of science and its application, of reports showing the history and progress of these subjects or branches, is the second object of the "active operations." These publications diffuse among men the knowledge obtained by the agency of the institution, or from without. The subjects which have been already embraced in the Smithsonian Contributions, and in the different volumes of reports, &c., have been numerous and well distributed among the various branches of knowledge, the abstract and the practical. The publications are widely scattered among the institutions of this and of other countries, given to them or exchanged for their proceedings, transactions, or other publications, and accessible at moderate rates to individuals. Of the impression made abroad by the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge the learned professor of Greek of Harvard University thus speaks:

"CAMBRIDGE, MASS., June 30, 1854. "I have but recently returned from Europe, and I now desire to acknowledge the service you did me by your circular letter of introduction to the librarians of the European establishments, which are in correspondence with the Smithsonian Institution. Wherever I presented it I was received with great kindness and attention, and had the opportunity of seeing whatever was curious, interesting, and valurble, in the libraries and collections.

"It gave me pleasure to notice the high estimation in which the Smithsonian Institution, under its present management, is held everywhere in Europe. The volumes published under its auspices have done the highest honor to American science, and are considered most valuable contributions to the stock of knowledge among men. They are shown to visitors as among the most creditable publications of the

age, and as highly interesting illustrations of the progress of science and the arts in the United States; and the eagerness to possess them is very great among the savans of the Old World. They were shown to me wherever I went, and the commendations bestowed on the civilization of America, as evinced by the excellence of these works, both in matter and form, was deeply gratifying to me. The last time I had an opportunity of seeing them was in the university library at Athens; the librarian pointed them out to me, and expressed the greatest anxiety to complete the set, one or two volumes of which were wanting."

The publications thus approved bring to the Smithsonian Institution a return of works published by the learned societies of the world and by governments such as could not be procured in any other way, supplying the library with rich productions of both literature and science. The gradual formation of a valuable library would result from this system of international exchanges even without direct purchase.

The programme of organization of the institution and its execution. have met with the unqualified support of a very large majority of the scientific and literary men of our country, expressed individually or in the associations of which they are members. This is general throughout the Union, and from no quarter have more decidedly favorable opinions been expressed than from that to which the regent at whose instance this investigation has been made (Mr. Choate) belongs. The committee must necessarily be brief in its selections from the numerous letters and other communications before it. In speaking of the general considerations proposed by Professor Henry as guides in adopting a plan of organization, a committee of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences of Boston say, that "they command the entire assent of the committee," and proceed to discuss favorably the various provisions for the increase and diffusion of knowledge furnished by the programme. This committee consisted of such scholars as Everett, Sparks, and Longfellow, and such men of science as Peirce and Gray.

Since the appointment of this committee, Professor Peirce, of Harvard university, has renewed his testimony to the wisdom of the plan of organization, and has spoken further in relation to the efficiency of its execution. In a letter addressed to the chairman of this committee, he says:

"Of all men, none can be more sensible of the value of the great storehouses of the wisdom of past ages than they who are obliged to resort to them in the development of their own researches. The knowledge which has already been given to the world, and which is accumulated in the library, stimulates and invigorates the mind for original thoughts, and supplies important materials for investigation; it is to the author what the collection of models in the Patent Office is to the inventor; but, nevertheless, the increase of knowledge depends chiefly upon the native vigor of intellect, and its diffusion is performed by the press. To the strong mind the collections of the Vatican are a golden opportunity, richer than the mineral harvest of California; but not richer than the hills and streams which abound within every man's

sight; not richer than the stone beneath our feet, on which is written the history of the world; than the leaf of the forest, on which is inscribed the thought of its Creator; or than the cloud in the lightnings, of which the laws and the glory of God are as distinctly revealed to the faithful of the present generation as they were upon Mount Sinai.

"The valuable contributions to knowledge which have already been made by the Smithsonian Institution, are a living proof that vast libraries are not necessary to the development of new thoughts. If you will compare these memoirs with the scientific productions of the same period in Europe, you may find them perchance inferior in erudition, but not in profoundness and originality of thought. Do you believe that Smithson, who was himself engaged in chemical investigations, could have intended a library by his words "an institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men?" If you will examine his nine memoirs to the Royal Society, of which he was an active member, and his eighteen other contributions to science, you will not find one of them which required a library for its production. Each was the natural growth of a deeply thinking mind. Smithson was emphatically a maker, and not a collector of books; and in the scientific circle to which he belonged, the ordinary use of language would have totally precluded the interpretation which some men of quite a different cast of mind have presumed to impose upon his words. Expand his largeness of expression to its utmost extent; include in it all that a generous mind like his own would desire it to embrace; but let it not be cramped and twisted out of shape, and so forced from its original design that it shall wholly fail to accomplish the object of the munifi

cent testator.

"Most earnestly, then, in the name of science, and especially of American science, do I protest against such a gross perversion of this important trust. I assure you, sir, that the great body of scientific men throughout the country warmly approve Professor Henry's plan of conducting the Smithsonian Institution, and regard it as a faithful exponent of the almost undivided opinion of scientific and learned men as to the proper execution of Smithson's will and the law of Congress."

Professor Agassiz, also of Harvard University, Cambridge, whose fame as a naturalist is second to that of no man living, has given, in a letter to the chairman of the committee, the strongest expression of his favorable opinion of the working of the institution. The committee has space here only for an extract from the letter referred to:

"Smithson had already made his will and left his fortune to the Royal Society of London, when certain scientific papers were offered to that learned body for publication. Notwithstanding his efforts to have them published in their transactions, they were refused; upon which he changed his will and made his bequest to the United States. It would be easy to collect in London more minute information upon this occurrence, and should it appear desirable, I think I could put the committee in the way of learning all the circumstances. Nothing seems to me to indicate more plainly what were the testator's views respecting the best means of promoting science than this fact. I will not deny the great importance of libraries, and no one has felt more keenly the want of an extensive scientific library than I have since I have been in the United

And

States; but after all, libraries are only tools of a secondary value to those who are really endowed by nature with the power of making original researches, and thus increasing knowledge among men. though the absence or deficiency of libraries is nowhere so deeply felt as in America, the application of the funds of the Smithsonian Institution to the formation of a library, beyond the requirements of the daily progress of science, would only be, in my humble opinion, a perversion of the real object of the trust, inasmuch as it would tend to secure facilities only to the comparatively small number of American students who may have the time and means to visit Washington when they wish to consult a library. Such an application of the funds would indeed lessen the ability of the Smithsonian Institution to accomplish its great object, which is declared by its founder to be the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, to the full extent to which they may be spent, to increase unduly the library.

"Moreover, American students have a just claim upon their own country for such local facilities as the accumulation of books affords.

If I am allowed, in conclusion, to state my personal impression respecting the management of the institution thus far, I would only express my concurrence with the plan of active operations adopted by the regents, which has led to the publication of a series of volumes, equal in scientific value to any productions of the same kind issued by learned societies anywhere.

"The distribution of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, has already carried the name of the institution to all parts of the civi lized world, and conveyed with them such evidence of the intellectual activity of America as challenges everywhere admiration; a result which could hardly be obtained by applying the resources of the institution to other purposes."

3. Additional legislation.

From what has been already said, it may well be interred that the committee have been unable to see anything either in the provisions of the law, or the administration of the institution, which requires reform by additional legislation. Indeed, they could not have imagined on what ground additional legislation could be demanded, if they had not been informed by the Hon. Mr. Meacham, who presented the resolution under which the committee was appointed. That gentleman was invited to attend the meetings of the committee, was authorized to present charges and specifications upon any branch of the subject referred to them, as also to direct summons for witnesses, and to conduct the examination whenever he desired to do so. He pointed out only two particulars as requiring additional legislation.

The first was, "that additional legislation was needed to secure impartiality towards authors who apply for the publication of their researches." No instance of partiality or injustice in this respect has been brought to the notice of the committee by proof or by allegation. The idea seems to have been advanced for the first time by one of the assistants of the secretary (Mr. Jewett) in a communication addressed to a special committee of the regents in the year 1854.

The argument there made by Mr. Jewett has been abbreviated by Mr. Meacham, and may be stated as objecting that the power of ac

cepting or rejecting a memoir presented for publication is virtually in the hands of one man.

The practice of the Royal Society of London is stated as being far preferable. On this point the committee would remark that the same plan cannot be adopted by the institution because, as the committee has been informed, it has no fellows from whom an examining council of twenty-one members may be selected. And if the plan could be adopted the committee do not think it as good as the one which the regents have chosen. In the present state of knowledge the several branches can scarcely be represented by twenty-one individuals, and it may occur in case of a particular paper that not a single member of the council is fully competent to decide upon its merits. The institution is not thus restricted, it has at its command the learning of the whole country, and is not even confined in its choice of examiners to men of science at home, but can select them from distinguished individuals abroad.

The rules adopted by the regents are in this respect few and simple, and in the opinion of the committee sufficient. They have provided in their programme of organization as follows:

1st. No memoir, on subjects of physical science, to be accepted for publication which does not furnish a positive addition to human knowledge, resting on original research; and all unverified speculations to be rejected.

2d. Each memoir presented to the institution to be submitted for examination to a commission of persons of reputation for learning in the branch to which the memoir pertains; and to be accepted for publication only in case the report of this commission is favorable.

3d. The commission to be chosen by the officers of the institution, and the name of the author, as far as practicable, concealed, unless a favorable decision be made.

It will be perceived that there is nothing like a "star chamber of science" in this part of the plan of the institution. The opinion of the commission is formed upon the merits of the work or paper, and cannot be affected by partiality for or prejudice against the author whose name is unknown to them.

If any author should feel himself aggrieved by the appointment of an incompetent or prejudiced commission, he will have no difficulty in presenting a complaint to the Board of Regents by whom another commission may be named. In fact, no well founded complaint on this score has yet been made so far as has been shown to this committee, and the danger complained of seems to them only speculative and fanciful. The Board of Regents have full power to remedy whatever may be wrong in the practical working of this part of the plan, and it will be time enough to ask the interference of Congress when the evils which are now only conjectural shall be realized.

2d. Mr. Meacham suggests, "that the institution should be placed in such a position that legal redress may be gained by those who are improperly deprived of their rights.”

It is true that the institution is not a corporation capable of suing or being sued. But no practical evils have as yet resulted from the refusal of Congress to make the establishment an incorporation. It is a