other than members of Congress, two of whom 

 shall he members of the National Institute and 

 reside in Washington, the other four to he inhabi- 

 tants of the States, no two of them from the same 

 State. '^'' The Chancellor of the Board is elected by 

 its members and by custom is always the Chief 

 Justice. Today, the mayor of Washington is no 

 longer included, the National Institute has long 

 been defunct, and the six other persons have be- 

 come nine, two from Washington, D. C, and the 

 other seven from different States. The Board of 

 Regents also elects the Secretary of the Smithsoni- 

 an, whose rank is equivalent to that of the secre- 

 tary of a department and who also serves as secre- 

 tary to the Board and to the Executive Committee 

 of the Board. 



Joseph Henry. The first Secretary of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, Joseph Henry, was probably 

 the most distinguished physical scientist in Ameri- 

 ca at the time. 17'' His position was further 

 strengthened by the fact that he had submitted to 

 the regents a plan for the operation of the Smith- 

 sonian before they elected him Secretary, i^fi 

 Henry's final "Programme of Organization" was 

 adopted by the Board on December 13, 1847. As 

 he had promised in earlier correspondence, Henry 

 set "increase of knowledge" as the primary goal 

 and "diffusion of knowledge among men" as the 

 secondary goal.'^'' 



The Smithsonian Institution began as a small 

 enterprise with an annual budget of only $30,000 

 (the interest on the endowment). 178 Joseph Henry 

 continually struggled to orient the Institution and 

 its funds toward his goal — the increase of knowl- 

 edge. He desired that the Smithsonian's building 

 be simple and economical, but Renwick's elabo- 

 rate "Norman Castle" was built in spite of his 

 objections. '79 Henry refused to accept collections 

 until they could be properly cared for; however, 

 by the time Congress finally insisted that the 

 Smithsonian take over the Government collec- 

 tions, Henry had an assistant, Spencer F. Baird, 

 who wanted them. 180 Although Henry wanted the 

 Institution to emphasize research. Senator Choate, 

 a long-term champion of the plan to make the 

 Smithsonian a library, advocated a maximum 



""•Excerpted from the act as quoted in Appendix C of Oehser 

 II. and from the Congressional Directory. 1977. pp. 715-716. 



17'Oehser II, p. 28; Dupree, pp. 80-81 . 



'■"■Oehserll.p. 28. 



"^Oehser II, Appendix D. "Joseph Henry's Programme of 

 Organization for the Smithsonian Institution." 



"^Dupree, p. 8."!. 



'^Washburn. Wilcomb E., "Joseph Henry's Conception of 

 the Purpose of the Smithsonian Institution." in A Cabinet of 

 Curiosities (Vniv. of Va. tVess: Charlottesville), pp. 116-119. 



"*"Washburn, Wilcomb E., "The Museum and Joseph Hen- 

 ry." Curafor VIII (l%.'i). No. I, pp. .^.1-54. 



emphasis on the library aspects of the act. Secre- 

 tary Henry resisted, but the Board of Regents 

 appointed an aggressive librarian, Charles Coffin 

 Jewett, as Assistant Secretary and assigned half 

 the annual budget to the library. After 1850 this 

 half had to be shared with the museum, but in 

 Henry's view it still represented too much of a 

 diversion from research. In 1854 be persuaded the 

 Board to terminate this arbitrary division. Jewett 

 went over their heads, appealing personally to the 

 Congress, and he was fired for doing so. Finally, in 

 1866, the Smithsonian Library was transferred and 

 became the nucleus of the Library of Congress, 

 although the Smithsonian retained title, i**' 



Henry provided an early means for scientists to 

 publish the results of independent research 

 through "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowl- 

 edge.""*- He began work in meteorology and de- 

 veloped a chain of observers, furnishing some with 

 instruments. When this activity became too large, 

 he happily transferred it to the Army Signal Serv- 

 ice. He pursued his own studies in fuel oils (animal 

 and vegetable oils in those days) and acoustics; 

 this work led to cheaper oil for lighthouses and a 

 siren fog-signaling system. l**-* 



Spencer Baird. When Henry died in 1878, Spen- 

 cer Baird was elected Secretary and continued his 

 own efforts — to make the Smithsonian a great 

 museum, a great center for research on the collec- 

 tions, and an important agent for expeditions and 

 surveys. i'*^ One of the subsequent surveys played 

 an important role in the growth of the Smithsoni- 

 an — a survey of the arid West by John Wesley 

 Powell. Through Powell's influence, the appropria- 

 tion bill enacted by the Congress on March 3, 

 1877, contained a provision for a new Bureau of 

 American Ethnology (BAE) in the Smithsonian 

 Institution, and Powell became its first director.'**^ 

 The BAE conducted 85 years of research on the 

 Indians of North America ■'^f' before it was merged 

 in 1964 with the National Museum Department of 

 Anthropology to form the Smithsonian Office of 

 Anthropology (now the Department of Anthropol- 

 ogy in the Museum of Natural History). 



Samuel Langley. The third Secretary was Samu- 

 el Pierpont Langley, best remembered for his 

 pioneering research in aeronautics and studies 

 on flight of birds. Langley's background, however, 

 was in astronomy, and he created the Astrophysi- 

 cal Laboratory, now the prestigious Smithsonian 

 Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), which is the 



iK'Dupree, pp. 84-8.S; Oehser II, pp. 38-39. 



iK-Oehser I. pp. 42-43. 



ix'lbid.p. 57. 



ix^Oehser II, p. 41. 



i«'^Dupree, pp. 199-211. 



'"'•Oehser II. p. 114. 



COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS AND HISTORICAL TRENDS 343 



