The Genesis of the l-niled States National MuseuiH. 99 



tioii of the Smithsonian Institution were brought forward, very similar 

 in many respects to those which had developed within the National 

 Institution. 



The idea of a national museum to ho. administered in connection with 

 the Smithsonian organization had been suggested by no one in the five 

 years of discussion which preceded the organization of the National 

 Institution. 



It is true that there had been plans proposed, especially those of 

 Dunglison and Rush, which might have led up to the development of 

 a museum, but the value of the museum as an educational agency and 

 as an aid to research was not understood in those days. In its former 

 aspect, it needed the teachings of the great exhibitions from 1851 to 1876, 

 in the latter the vivifying influence of the Darwinian scientific renais- 

 sance of 1859. 



The subject of the Smithsonian legacy and its proper disposition was 

 henceforth one of those most frequently discussed by the founders of 

 the National Institution, and for years it was the opinion of many 

 influential men that this society should be made the custodian of the 

 Smithson fund, and that the interests of the two establishments should 

 be united. 



A suggestive indication of the sentiment of the officers of the Insti- 

 tution is found in the letter of the committee of management to the 

 Secretaries of War and the Navy in 1842, in which they remark that 

 the objec't of the National Institution is "to increase and diffuse knowl- 

 edge among men" — making prominent the words of the Smithsonian 

 bequest instead of the official definition of the objects of their own 

 society, and deliberately indicating the fact of quotation, by the custom- 

 ary symbols. 



The influence of this society was strongly and continuously present in 

 Congress, for the six years which followed its organization, until the 

 Smithsonian act was finally framed, and it seems very appropriate to try 

 to ascertain whose was the master mind which not only prevailed in 

 finally ingrafting the development of the National Museum upon the 

 Smithsonian project, but which directly or indirectly led to the forma- 

 tion of the various features of organization which have become such 

 characteristic elements in the Smithsonian plan. 



The controlling mind was evidently that of Joel R. Poinsett, of South 

 Carolina, who was Secretary of the Navy in 1840, and at whose house 

 the society was organized, by eight persons, among whom were, of course, 

 Mr. Poinsett, Colonel Abert, Mr. Markoe, and Colonel Totteu. Mr. 

 Poinsett was senior director, under the first plan of organization, and 

 occupied the chair at every meeting until, under the amended constitu- 

 tion, he was elected its first president in 1841. The amendment to the 

 constitution was doubtless made in order to retain his official leadership, 

 for he became director ex officio while Secretary of the Navy. With the 



