178 JAMES SMITHSON AND HIS BEQUEST. 



July, 1844, viz, $178,004, be appropriated to the erection of buildings and 

 inclosureof grounds for the Smithsonian Institution ; that the business 

 of the institution should be conducted by a board of twelve managers from 

 different States or Territories ; that a plain and substantial building be 

 erected, with rooms for a museum, library, chemical laboratory, lectures, 

 arboretum; all the objects of natural history belonging to the United 

 States to be transferred to said institution, exchanges of duplicate speci- 

 mens to be made, a superintendent to be appointed to be professor also 

 of agriculture and horticulture, additional professors of natural history, 

 chemistry, astronomy, and such other branches as the wants of science 

 may require, "excluding law, physic, or divinity.'' experiments to be 

 made to determine the utility of new fruits, plants, and vegetables, and 

 finally students to be admitted to the institution gratuitously. 



Mr. Adams in February, 1814, succeeded in having a select committee 

 of nine appointed to consider the proper disposition of the fund, and in 

 behalf of this committee made a third elaborate and comprehensive re- 

 port, together with a bill providing for the appropriation of $800,000 as 

 the Smithson fund, to be permanently invested in stock of the United 

 States at 6 per cent, interest, and the income to be devoted, as he had 

 before recommended, for an observatory and nautical almanac. 



On the 12th December, 1844, Mr. Tappan introduced a bill in the Sen- 

 ate of a similar character to the one he had offered before, but in addi- 

 tion specified that the books to be purchased for a library should con- 

 sist of works on science and the arts, especially such as relate to the 

 ordinary business of life and to various mechanical and other improve- 

 ments and discoveries. In prescribing the duties of professors and lec- 

 turers, special reference was to be had to the productive and liberal arts, 

 improvements in agriculture, horticulture, and rural economy. Seeds 

 and plants were to be distributed throughout the country, soils were to be 

 analyzed ; the professor of natural history was to refer in hislectures to the 

 history and habits of useful and injurious animals; the professor of geol- 

 ogy was to give practical instruction in tin 1 exploration and working of 

 mines; the professor of architecture was to give instruction as to the 

 best materials and plans for building; the professor of astronomy was 

 to give a course of lectures on navigation and the use of nautical in- 

 struments. It was also provided that works in popular form on the 

 sciences and the aid they bring to labor should be published and dis- 

 tributed. 



In the discussion to which this bill gave rise in the Senate on the 8th 

 of January, 1845, Mr.Choate made the brilliant speech which is referred 

 to in the North American Review as "a splendid offering on the shrine 

 of literature by one of her most gifted votaries, and one which, in fu- 

 ture times, will render more memorable the day on which it was deliv- 

 ered than that gallant military achievement of which it is the anniver- 

 sary. No prouder monument than this would he needed for his fame."* 



*Xorllt American Review, vol. 79, p. 459. 



