146 Memorial of George Broiv)i Goode. 



The will of the Twenty-ninth Congress was not necessarily that of 

 the Thirtieth. Mr. Hilliard, of Alabama, made a bold and successful 

 stroke for the independence of the Board of Regents, and defeated a 

 motion to appoint a regular Congressional committee to supervise and 

 report upon their proceedings. This was a step toward securing the 

 recognition of the right of the Regents to interpret for themselves the 

 true meaning of the charter. 



The next Congress was still less disposed to exercise a minute S}^stem 

 of control, and the Regents, through Senator Jefferson Davis, boldl}^ 

 asserted that it was ' ' improper for Congress to interfere with the adminis- 

 tration of a fund which it has confided to a Board of Regents not entirely 

 formed of members of Congress and not responsible to it.'" 



The attitude of Professor Henry from the beginning to the end of the 

 thirty-one years of his secretaryship was singularly independent and out- 

 spoken. Having before his election submitted to the Board of Regents 

 a plan of organization which met with their approbation, he was elected 

 with the understanding that he was to carry this plan into effect. 



He was from the beginning in a certain way the authorized interpreter 

 of the Smithsonian bequest, and, as everyone knows who has studied 

 the history of the Institution, his earnest and steadfast policy and the 

 wonderful clearness and force with which he explained his views, sup- 

 ported by his scientific eminence and his grandeur of character, gave 

 him a wonderful influence with the successive bodies of men who acted 

 as regents. 



His influence from the very start was on the side of publication and 

 original research and in opposition to constant expenditure of what in 

 time he began to designate as "local objects." 



His attitude toward museum and library, especially the former, was at 

 first a noncommital one. He proceeded slowl^^ evidentl)^ not from lack 

 of courage, but with the methods of a man of science, studying the 

 results of different courses of policy, and, when he expressed an opinion, 

 speaking from the standpoint of experience. 



The history of the National Institution and its fate, hopelessly involved 

 and crushed to death by the weight of the collections and books which 

 had been given or lent to it, was constantly brought to his mind, for 

 the Institution was expected to take up this burden, with the prospect 

 of unlimited additions to its weight, and to bear it alone and perhaps 

 forever. 



To him, and to the Regents also, it must have been evident that this 

 burden once assumed, the fate of the Smithsonian Institution would 

 eventually be similar to that of the National Institute. 



More directh^ threatening was the evil of the immediate ab.sorption of 

 a large part of the income, to the detriment of the plans which seemed 

 to him more likely to accomplish the wishes of the Institution. 



' Rhees, Documents, p. 509. 



