320 Meviorial of GeoTge Brozvn Goode. 



Through these books, through the reputation of the men who have 

 worked for it and through it, and through the good accomplished by its 

 system of international exchange, by means of which within the past 

 thirtj^-eight years 1,262,114 packages of books and other vScientific and 

 literary materials have been distributed to every region of the earth, it 

 has acquired a reputation at least as far-reaching as that of any other 

 institution of learning in the world. 



No one has been able to show wli}" Smithson .selected the United States 

 as the seat of his foundation. He had no acquaintances in America, nor 

 does he appear to have had an}- books relating to America except two. 

 Rhees quotes from one of these. Travels through North America, by 

 Isaac Weld, secretary of the Royal Societ}^ a paragraph concerning 

 Washington, then a small town of five thousand inhabitants, in which it 

 is predicted that "the Federal city, as soon as navigation is perfected, 

 will increase most rapidly, and that at a future daj-, if the affairs of the 

 United States go on as prosperously as the}" have done, it will become 

 the grand emporium of the West, and rival in magnitude and splendor 

 the cities of the old world." 



Inspired by a belief in the future greatness of the new nation, realiz- 

 ing that while the needs of England were well met b)^ existing organiza- 

 tions such as would not be likely to spring up for many 3'ears in a new, 

 poor, and growing country, he founded in the new England an institu- 

 tion of learning, the civilizing power of which has been of incalculable 

 value. Who can attempt to say what the condition of the United 

 States would have been to-day without this bequest? 



In the words of John Ouincy Adams: 



Of all the foundations of establishments for pious or charitable uses which ever 

 signalized the spirit of the age, or the comprehensive beneficence of the founder, 

 none can be named more deserving the approbation of mankind. 



The most important service hy far which the vSmithsonian Institution 

 has rendered to the nation from year to year since 1846 — intangible, but 

 none the less appreciable — has been its constant cooperation with the 

 Government, public institutions, and individuals in every enterprise, 

 scientific or educational, which needed its advice, support, or aid from its 

 resources. 



There have been, however, material results of its activities, the extent 

 of which can not fail to impress anyone who will look at them; the most 

 important of these are the library and the museum , which have grown 

 up under its fostering care. 



The library has been accumulated without aid from the Treasury of 

 the United States ; it has, in fact, been the result of an extensive system 

 of exchanges, the publications of the institution having been used to 

 obtain similar publications from institution's of learning in all parts of 

 the world. 



