REPORT OF THE SP:CRETARV. 5 



KEGl'I.AR MEETlNi; OF MARCH 7, 11*04. 



The Chancellor read, in "full the report of the .special comniittee 

 appointed to consider the (|ue!=?tion of defining- the powers of the 

 executive connnittee, which was very fully discussed and adopted. 



Doctor Bell then read the special report of the executive conunittee 

 as presented by him at the meeting of December 8, 1903. After dis- 

 cussion the Board adopted Senator Cullom's motion that action on the 

 report be indefinitely postponed. 



The report of the special committee on the disposition of the remains 

 of James Smithson, in which it was reconunended that a fitting" tomb 

 should be erected in the grounds of the Institution and that Congress 

 be requested to make an adequate appropriation for it, was submitted. 

 Aftei' remarks the report was adopted with the understanding that the 

 committee was to pursue the subject still further. 



The Secretary brought before the Board the matter of the will of 

 the late Harriet Lane Johnston, who left a number of paintings to the 

 Corcoran GaUery of Art until a national gallery of art should l)e estab- 

 lished by the Government. The Corcoran Gallery had declined the 

 pictures under these conditions, and the Secretary had l)een addressed 

 with regard to the probability of the Government establishing such 

 a gallery of art under the Smithsonian Institution. The matter was 

 referred to the executive conmiittee. 



GEXERAI. CONSIDERATIONS. 



The Institution has been for more than iialf a century one of the 

 most important agencies in the intellectual life of the American people. 

 It has furnished a center for workers in every department of scientific 

 and educational activity, and it has been the chief agency for the free 

 exchange of books, apparatus of research, and of scientific intelligence 

 between this and other countries. Its publications, which include 

 more than 250 volumes, are to be found in all of the important libraries 

 of the world, and some of them on the work table of every scientific 

 investigator. Its library constitutes an important part of the Library 

 of Congress, and its museum is the rarest in existence in many branches 

 of the natural history and ethnology of the New World. 



For nearl}' sixty years it has been in constant cooperation with the 

 Government, with public institutions, and with individuals in eveiy 

 enterprise, scientific or educational, which needed its advice, support, 

 or aid. The appreciation of the work of the Institution by the Ameri- 

 can people is best testified by their representatives in Congress. This 

 has been clearl}^ demonstrated through many successive terms regard- 

 less of political change; by the judgment with which their representa- 

 tives upon the Board of Regents are selected; ])y the care by Avhich 

 they protect the Institution in its freedom from political entangle- 



