THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 



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elected and appointed for merit, and for that alone. No person has 

 ever been appointed on the scientific staff for any political reason or 

 consideration. 



It is impossible to look into the future. The Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion has a remarkable organization for the administration of funds 

 for the promotion of science; yet amidst the great benefactions of 

 the past quarter of a century relatively few have come to it. Its 

 activities could be still further increased if it had greater means under 

 its control, and the regents, because of the peculiarly independent posi- 

 tion they hold, can be of great public service in suggesting the channel 

 into which gifts for scientific purposes might be directed, even if they 

 do not see their way clear to accepting such donations for the institution 

 itself. 



For the National Museum a great new building is a prime necessity. 

 The museum has practically reached a point where it is physically 

 impossible that it should grow under present conditions. 



Secretary Langley has for several years past been urging upon the 

 government the dispatch of several expeditions for capturing the species 

 of large mammals so rapidly being destroyed in the United States and 

 Alaska; but even without this, the National Zoological Park, with its 

 relationships to the other great national parks, is destined to be one of 

 the great collections of the world. 



The Bureau of American Ethnology, which since its organization 

 has devoted itself to the aborigines of this continent, may have new 

 work to do in Porto Eico and in Hawaii. 



Among still other activities, of which there is now but a premoni- 

 tion, a National Gallery of Art (provided for by Congress in the 

 original charter) may be alluded to. 



The past of the Smithsonian Institution is secure, its present is 

 known to all men, and it looks forward to the future in the belief that it 

 will worthily continue under whatever changing conditions to 'increase 

 find diffuse knowledge among men.' 



