KEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1909. 9 



" Specimens of staple materials, of their gradual manufacture, and 

 of the finished product of manufactures and the arts may also, your 

 committee think, be usefully introduced. This would supply ojipor- 

 tunity to examine samples of the best manufactured articles our coun- 

 try affords, and to judge her gradual progress in arts and manu- 

 factures. * * * 



" The gallery of art, your connnittee think, should include both 

 paintings and sculpture, as well as engravings and architectural de- 

 signs; and it is desirable to have in connexion with it one or more 

 studios in which young artists might copy without interruption, being 

 admitted under such regulations as the board may prescribe. Your 

 committee also think that, as the collection of paintings and sculj)ture 

 will probably accumulate slowly, the room destined for a galler}^ of 

 art might properly and usefully meanwhile be occupied during the 

 sessions of Congress as an exhibition room for the works of artists 

 generalh^ ; and the extent and general usefulness of such an exhibition 

 might probably be increased if an arrangement could be effected with 

 the Academy of Design, the Arts-Union, the Artists' Fund Society, 

 and other associations of similar character, so as to concentrate at the 

 metropolis for a certain portion of each winter the best results of 

 talent in the fine arts." 



The important points in the foregoing report are (1) that it 

 was the opinion of the Regents that a museum was requisite under 

 the law. Congress having left no discretion in the matter; (2) that 

 ethnology and anthropology, though not specially named, were yet 

 as important subjects as natural history; (3) that the history of the 

 progress of useful inventions and the collection of the raw materials 

 and products of the manufactures and arts should also be provided 

 for; (4) for the gallery of art the committee had models in existence, 

 and they proposed, pending the gathering of art collections, which 

 would of necessity be slow, to provide for loan exhibitions by cooperat- 

 ing with art academies and societies. 



In the resolutions which were adopted upon the presentation of the 

 report, a museum was mentione9l as " one of the principal modes of 

 executing the act and trust." * The work was to go forward as the 



<^Resolved, That it is the intention of the act of Congress establishing the 

 Institution, and in accordance with the design of Mr. Smithson, as expressed in 

 his will, that one of the principal modes of executing the act and the trust is 

 the accumulation of collections of specimens and objects of natural history and 

 of elegant art, and the gradual formation of a library of valuable works per- 

 taining to all departments of human knowledge, to the end that a copious store- 

 house of materials of science, literature, and art may be provided which shall 

 excite and diffuse the love of learning among men, and shall assist the original 

 investigations and efforts of those who may devote themselves to the pursuit 

 of any branch of knowledge. 



