2 ANNUAL EEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



THE BOARD OF REGENTS 



The affairs of the Institution are administered by a Board of 

 Regents whose membership consists of "the Vice President, the 

 Chief Justice, three Members of the Senate, and three Members of 

 the House of Representatives, together with six other persons other 

 than Members of Congress, tw^o of whom shall be resident in the 

 city of Washington, and the other four shall be inhabitants of some. 

 State, but no two of them of the same State." One of the Regents is 

 elected chancellor by the board; in the past the selection has fallen 

 upon the Vice President or the Chief Justice ; and a suitable person 

 is chosen by the Regents as Secretary of the Institution, who is also 

 secretary of the Board of Regents, and the executive officer directly 

 in charge of the Institution's activities. 



The following changes occurred in the personnel of the board dur- 

 ing the year : Senator Woodbridge N. Ferris died on March 23, 1928, 

 and Senator Claude A. Swanson was appointed to succeed him on 

 March 28, 1928. The board also lost by death the Hon. Henry White 

 and Mr. Charles F. Choate, jr., and their places were filled by the 

 appointment of the Hon. Charles Evans Hughes on December 21, 

 1927, and Dr. John C. Merriam on December 21, 1927. 



The roll of the Regents at the close of the fiscal year was as fol- 

 lows: William H. Taft, Chief Justice of the United States, chan- 

 cellor; Charles G. Daw^es, Vice President of the United States; mem- 

 bers from the Senate, Reed Smoot, Joseph T. Robinson, Claude A. 

 Swanson ; members from the House of Representatives, Albert John- 

 son, R. Walton Moore, Walter H. Newton; citizen members, Robert 

 S. Brookings, Missouri; Irwin B. Laughlin, Pennsylvania; Frederic 

 A. Delano, Washington, D. C. ; Dwight W. Morrow, New Jersey; 

 Charles Evans Hughes, New York; and John C. Merriam, Wash- 

 ington, D. C. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 



Elected on January 10, 1928, to be Secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, it became my duty to study the nature of the Institution, 

 its sources of strength, and the most effective ways in which it may 

 advance the mission of its founder, James Smithson, " for the increase 

 and diffusion of knowdedge among men." 



To the casual observer it may appear that the most important func- 

 tion of the Smithsonian is the administration of the public Museum, 

 art galleries, and Zoological Park confided to its direction. In these 

 days of easy travel the number of those who walk through the Na- 

 tional Museum, the Freer Gallery, and the Zoological Park reaches 

 several millions each year. The educational value is great, though 

 doubtless the influence exercised on the minds of many visitors is 



