[ 1] 



8 



majority of the Regents, supposing it necessary, to make immediate pro- 

 vision for the accommodation of this gift, had taken preliminary step??, 

 previous to my appointment, to construct a large building, and indeed a 

 majority of the committee, to which the matter was referred, had deter- 

 mined to adopt the plan of the present edifice. Strenuous opposition was 

 however made to this ; and as a compromise it was finally agreed to draw 

 from the U. S. Treasury ^250,000 of accrued interest, and instead of ex- 

 pending this immediately in completing the plan of the proposed building, 

 to invest it in treasury notes, then at par, and to finish the building in the 

 course of five years, in part out of the interest of these notes, in part out of 

 the sale of a portion of them, and also in part out of a portion of tlie 

 annual interest accruing on the original bequest. It was estimated that in 

 this way, at the end of five years, besides devoting ^250,000 to the build- 

 ing, the annual income of the Institution would be increased from ^30,000 

 to nearly $40,000, a sum sufficient to carry out all the provisions of the 

 programme. 



After the resolutions relative to the division of the iiccm? between 

 collections on the one hand and active operations on the other had been 

 adopted, and the plan of finance as to the building liad been settled, I 

 was reqitested to confer with persons of literary and scientific reputa- 

 tion and to digest into the form of a general programme the several re- 

 solutions of the Board. In the programme which was thus produced and 

 afterwards adopted, it is attempted to harmonize the diTerent proposi- 

 tions of the Board and to render them all, library, collections, &c., as far 

 as ])Ossible, subservient to a living, active organization. Though a 

 valuable library will in time be accumulated, by donation and the ex- 

 change of the publications of the Institution, the design at first is to 

 jiurchase only such books as are immediately necess«u'y in the other opera- 

 tions of the Institution, or which cannot be procured in this country, and 

 the Librarian is required to perform other duties than those which pertain 

 to the office of an ordinary collector and curator of books. He is directed 

 to report on plans of libraries^ and the best method of n a laging them: 

 to collect the statistics of the libraries of the United States : to make a 

 general catalogue as far as possible of all the books in this country, and to 

 j)rocure all the information necessary for rendering the Institution a centre 

 of bibliographical knowledge. Instead of attempting to form a. miscella- 

 neous collection of objects of nature and art, it is proposed to collect only 

 those v/hich will yield a harvest of new results, and to preserve principally 

 such as are not found in other collections, or will serve to illustrate and 

 verify the Smithsonian public^itions. 



The tendency of an Institution in which collections form a prominent 

 object, is constantly towards a stationary condition ' with a given income, 

 the time must inevitably come when the expenditures necessary to accom- 

 modate the articles with house room and attendance will just equal the 

 receipts. There is indeed no plan by V'.'hich the funds of an Institution 

 may be more inefficiently expended, than that of filling a costly building 

 with an indiscriminate coHection of objects of curiosity, and giving these 

 in charge to a set of inactive curators. Happily, the programme of or- 

 ganization and the system of expenditure which the Regents have adopted, 

 if rigidly adhered to, will prevent this state of things, and happily the spirit 

 oi the present directors and officers who are to give the initial form to the 



