REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 3 
pose, submitted in December and January following, shows a thorough 
consideration of the subject in both the spirit and the letter of the law. 
It would seem not out of place to cite here the very first pronounce- 
ment of the Board with reference to the character of the Museum: 
**In obedience to the requirements of the charter,“ which leaves 
little discretion in regard to the extent of accommodations to be pro- 
vided, your committee recommend that there be included in the build- 
ing a museum of liberal size, fitted up to receive the collections destined 
for the Institution. *. * * 
‘‘As important as the cabinets of natural history by the charter 
required to be included in the Museum your committee regard its eth- 
nological portion, including all collections that may supply items in 
the physical history of our species, and illustrate the manners, customs, 
religions and progressive advance of the various nations of the world: 
as, for example, collections of skulls, skeletons, portraits, dresses, 
implements, weapons, idols, antiquities, of the various races of man. 
* * * Tn this connexion, your committee recommend the passage 
of resolutions asking the cooperation of certain public functionaries, 
and of the public generally, in furtherance of the above objects. 
‘*Your committee are further of opinion that in the Museum, if the 
funds of the Institution permit, might judiciously be included various 
series of models illustrating the progress of some of the most useful 
inventions; such, for example, as the steam engine from its earliest 
and rudest form to its present most improved state; but this they pro- 
pose only so far as it may not encroach on ground already covered by 
the numerous models in the Patent Office. 
‘**Specimens of staple materials, of their gradual manufacture, and 
of the finished products of manufactures and the arts may also, your 
committee think, be usefully introduced. This would supply oppor- 
tunity to examine samples of the best manufactured articles our 
country affords, and to judge her gradual progress in arts and manu- 
maewures.>|  *.* 
“The gallery of art, your committee think, should include both 
paintings and sculpture, as well as engravings and architectural 
designs; 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 sculpture 
will probably accumulate slowly, the room destined fora gallery of art 
might properly and usefully meanwhile be occupied during the ses- 
sions of Congress as an exhibition room for the works of artists gen- 
erally; and the extent and general usefulness of such an exhibition 
«Since the Institution was not chartered in a legal sense but established by Con- 
gress, the use of the word ‘“‘charter’’ in this connection would seem to be unauthor- 
ized. It was not subsequently employed. 
