18 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



The next important desideratum is the relief of the fund of Smith- 

 son from the greatest of all the burdens which have been imposed 

 upon it, that, namely, of the expense involved in the care and exhibition 

 of the national museum. For carrjang on the active operations a 

 building not to exceed a cost of seventy-five thousand dollars would 

 have been amply sufficient, both in regard to the accommodations neces- 

 sarily required and the architectural embellishments which might be 

 thought requisite for such a structure; while the present building, the 

 erection of which was especially urged on the ground of the necessity of 

 providing accommodations on a liberal scale for a national musemii 

 and library, has cost to the present time $450,000, or, in other words, 

 besides the $240,000 of accrued interest originally appropriated to 

 the building, an outlay of not less than ten thousand dollars annually 

 for twenty years has been devoted to the same puipoce, and this ex- 

 penditure must, without the relief desired, be not only continued 

 but increased for years to come. 



Though great advances have been made in the favor with which 

 the Institution is regarded by the public, and the increased facilities 

 which have been afforded by the transfer of the objects we have 

 mentioned to the care of government, yet the absorption of the income 

 by the museum and the building is so great and accelerative that 

 unless Congress, in justice to the trust, takes upon itself the charge 

 of these objects or provides for their maintenance the active opera- 

 tions must be greatly diminished in efficiency, if not ultimately 

 abandoned. The reputation of the Institution and of the country is 

 however too much involved in the continuance of the active operations 

 to allow them to be abolished or even restricted. Every academy, every 

 college, every lyceum in the United States, as well as all the literary 

 and scientific institutions of Europe, Asia, and even those of Africa 

 and Australia, are interested in the continued success of the system. 

 Furthermore, it be truly said that to devolve the care of a national 

 museum on the Smithson fund is not only an act of injustice to the 

 bequest, but is at once injurious to the reputation of the institution 

 and that of the government, since the means which the former can 

 devote to this purpose after defraying other expenses are entirely inade- 

 quate to the support of a museum entitled to the name of "national." 

 A public museum, properly organized as a means of popular educa- 

 tion, or as an aid to the advancement of science, should not only be 

 furnished with extensive apartments for the proper accommodation 

 and exhibition of the articles, to be increased from time to time, but 

 it should also be provided with several professors, each learned in a 

 special branch of general natural history. So extended have these 



