2 . ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 v 



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, two 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 suit- 

 able person is chosen by them 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. 



In regard to the personnel of the board, the following changes 

 occurred during the year : Through his succession to the Presidency 

 on August 2, 1923, owing to the death of President Harding, the 

 Hon. Calvin Coolidge automatically ceased to be a Regent, thus 

 terminating his office as chancellor of the Institution, and to fill 

 the vacancy thus created, the Hon. William H. Taft was elected 

 chancellor of the board on December 13, 1923. Walter H. Newton, 

 Member of the House of Representatives from Minnesota, was ap- 

 pointed a Regent by the Speaker of the House to fill the vacancy 

 caused by the election to the Senate of Frank L. Greene. 



The roll of Regents at the close of the fiscal year was as follows: 

 William H. Taft, Chief Justice of the United States, chancellor; 

 Henry Cabot Lodge, Member of the Senate; Medill McCormick, 

 Member of the Senate; A. Owsley Stanley, Member of the Senate: 

 Albert Johnson, Member of the House of Representatives; R. Wal- 

 ton Moore, Member of the House of Representatives; Walter H. 

 Newton, Member of the House of Representatives; George Gray, 

 citizen of Delaware; Charles F. Choate, jr., citizen of Massachu- 

 setts ; Henry Wliite, citizen of Washington, D. C. ; Robert S. Brook- 

 ings, citizen of Missouri; Irwin B. Laughlin, citizen of Pennsyl- 

 vania ; and Frederic A. Delano, citizen of Washington, D. C. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 



In spite of the increasing difficulty in holding its own experienced 

 by the Institution in late years on account of its meager resources 

 and the increasing costs of maintenance, one of its primary functions, 

 the " diffusion of knowledge among men," is carried out with ever- 

 increasing scope, and its contacts with various groups of people are 

 continually growing in number. Of its 11 distinct series of publi- 

 cations, chiefly technical contributions to scientific knowledge though 

 including some more popular papers appealing to the general reader 



