182 JAMES SMITIISON AND HIS BEQUEST. 



York, George P. Marsh, of Vermont, Alexander D. Sims, of South Car- 

 olina, Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, and David Wilmot, of Pennsyl- 

 vania. 



On the 28th of February, 184C, Mr. Owen, from this select committee, 

 reported an elaborate bill embracing the principal features of Mr. Tap- 

 pan's bill of the last session, but adding a section providing for a normal 

 branch to give such a thorough scientific and liberal course of instruc- 

 tion as may be adapted to qualify young persons as teachers of our 

 common schools and to qualify students as teachers or professors of the 

 more important branches of natural science. A library was to be pro- 

 cured composed of valuable works pertaining to all departments of 

 human knowledge. Special reference was to be made by the professors 

 to the increase and extension of scientific knowledge generally, by ex- 

 periment and research. Essays, pamphlets, magazines, manuals, tracts 

 on science, history, chemistry, school-books, apparatus, &c, were au- 

 thorized. 



In advocating this bill Mr. Owen made a very able and impressive 

 speech, and one of the most memorable occurring in the discussion of 

 the subject of the disposition of the bequest. He condemned the dila- 

 toriness of Congress in waiting for ten years, after solemnly accepting 

 the trust, without doing anything whatever to carry out the intention 

 of the donor. 



"Small encouragement," he remarked, "is there, in such tardiness as 

 this, to others, as wealthy and as liberal as Smithson and Girard, to follow 

 their noble example! Small encouragement to such men to entrust to 

 our care bequests for human improvement! Due diligence is one of the 

 duties of a faithful trustee. Has Congress, in its conduct of this sacred 

 trusteeship, used due diligence? Have its members realized, in the 

 depths of their hearts, its duties and their urgent importance? Or has 

 not the language of our legislative action rather been but this: 'The 

 Smithsonian fund! Ah, true! That 'swell thought of. One forgets 

 these small matters. "' 



Mr. Owen reviewed all the legislative proceedings in relation to the 

 subject, the various plans brought forward from time to time for adop- 

 tion by Congress, and called attention to tin 1 fact that the object forwhieh 

 Mr. Adams had labored with so much zeal and perseverance — an astro 

 nomical observatory — had already been established in Washington. lie 

 then made an elaborate reply to Mr. Choate's arguments in favor of a 

 great library . He admitted that "in books exists the bygone world. By 

 books we come in contact with the mankind of former ages. By books 

 we travel among ancient nations, visit tribes long since extinct, and are 

 made familiar with manners that have yielded, centuries ago, to the 

 innovating influences of time." He would go as far as the farthest in 

 his estimate of the blessings which the art of printing had conferred 

 upon man; but such reasoning had no relation to the proposal em- 

 braced in Mr. Choate's scheme. 



