244 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 52 



sense, was not the kind of institution contemplated by Mr. Smith- 

 son's will ; that he judged, from the language and the fact of the 

 United States being trustee, that it ought to be as comprehensive 

 as possible in its objects and means and national in its government. 

 He thought that one of the main objects of the Institution should 

 be the gathering of natural history productions of various places ; 

 recommended that our consuls, naval and military officers, and even 

 ministers abroad be employed for this purpose ; and that the officers 

 of the army should collect facts bearing upon geology, natural his- 

 tory antiquities, and the character of the aboriginal races of the 

 United States. He recommended that a building be erected in Wash- 

 ington with accommodations for the business of the Institution ; that 

 a press be established, or authority to employ one, for printing com- 

 munications and literature. He provided for a very elaborate system 

 of lectures, to comprehend the leading branches of physical and 

 moral science. In concluding his rather long letter, Mr. Rush, with 

 a modest distrust of his own abilities to advise in the matter, de- 

 clared that the establishment of this Institution would be like a new 

 power coming into the Republic. I have omitted such parts of his 

 statement as were not adopted, but it is noteworthy that he projected 

 the lines upon which the Institution was finally established more 

 closely than any other person. 



As Mr. Goode put it in his account of the founding of the Insti- 

 tution in the Smithsonian History:^ "Mr. Rush objected to a school 

 of any kind and proposed a project which corresponds more nearly 

 than any other of those early days to that which was finally adopted. 

 In a shadowy yet far-seeing way, he outlined a system of scientific 

 correspondence, of lectureships, of general cooperation with the 

 scientific work of the Government, a liberal system of publication, 

 and collections — geological, zoological, botanical, ethnological, and 

 technological." 



The first meeting of the Regents of the Institution under the 

 organizing act was held on September 7, 1846, and of this body 

 Mr. Rush was a member as a citizen of Penns3dvania. At the meet- 

 ing held the next day, September 8, 1846, he was appointed a mem- 

 ber of the committee of three on library. 



How seriously Mr^ Rush took up his work for the Smithsonian 

 Institution when he became a Regent may be gathered from a remark 

 in the introduction to a small volume entitled "Washington in domes- 

 tic life, from original letters and manuscripts," published by the 



'The Smithsonian Institution, 1846-1896. History of its first Half Century. 

 Edited by George Brown Goode. Washington, 1897, pp. 23- 



