THE SMITH SOX I AN INSTITUTION. 323 



THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.* 



"r^pHE advancement of the highest interests of national science and 

 -L learning and the custody of objects of art and of the valuable 

 results of scientific expeditions conducted by the United States have been 

 committed to the Smithsonian Institution. In furtherance of its de- 

 clared purpose for the 'increase and diffusion of knowledge among 

 men' the congress has from time to time given it other important 

 functions. Such trusts have been executed by the institution with 

 notable fidelity. There should be no halt in the work of the institution, 

 in accordance with the plans which its secretary has presented, for the 

 preservation of the vanishing races of great North American animals 

 in the National Zoological Park. The urgent needs of the National 

 Museum are recommended to the favorable consideration of the con- 

 gress." (President Eoosevelt's first message to Congress.) 



In the first Smithsonian report issued in the twentieth century it 

 may not be amiss to tell the readers of this volume very briefly what 

 the institution is, how it came into being, and how it has fulfilled the 

 purposes for which it was established. 



In the popular mind the Smithsonian Institution is a picturesque 

 castellated building of brown stone, situated in a beautiful park at 

 Washington, containing birds and shells and beasts and many other 

 things, with another large adjacent building, often called the Smith- 

 sonian National Museum. The institution is likewise supposed to have 

 a large corps of learned men, all of whom are called 'professors' (which 

 they are not) , whose time is spent in writing books and making experi- 

 ments and answering all kinds of questions concerning the things in the 

 heavens above, the earth beneath, and the waters under the earth. 



Contrast this popular notion with the facts. The Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution is an 'establishment' created by an act of congress which owes 

 its origin to the bequest of James Smithson, an Englishman, a scien- 

 tific man, and at one time a vice-president of the Eoyal Society, who 

 died in Genoa in 1829, leaving his entire estate to the United States of 

 America 'to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowl- 

 edge among men. ' 



* This article is reprinted from the recent report of the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution. We have pleasure in reproducing the official account of the founda- 

 tion and activities of the institution, as we have had occasion to criticize its 

 present management. 



