146 THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 



died in (xcnoa in 1829, leaving- iiis entire estate to the United States of 

 America "to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowl- 

 edge among men." 



After ten years of debate in Congress, turning partly on the ques- 

 tion whether the Government ought to accept such a bequest at all 

 and put itself in the unprecedented position of the guardian of a 

 ward, Congress accepted the trust and ci'eated l\v enactment an 

 "Establishment" called by the name of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 consisting of the President of the United States, the Vice-President, 

 the Chief Justice of the United States, and the members of the Pres- 

 ident's Cabinet. It has also a Secretary, with varied functions, among 

 others that of being the Keeper of the Museum. 



Smithson\s money, which amounted to over half a million dollars, 

 and later to three-quarters of a million, a great fortune in that daj' of 

 small things, was deposited in the United States Treasury, the Govern- 

 ment afterwards agreeing to pa}" perpetually 6 per cent interest upon it. 



In the fundamental act creating the Institution, Congress, as abov^e 

 stated, provided that the President and the members of his Cabinet 

 should be members of the Institution, that is, should be the Institu- 

 tion itself, but that nevertheless it should be governed b}" a Boa'"d of 

 Regents, composed of the Vice-President and Chief Justice o^^ the 

 United States, three Regents to be appointed by the Preside: t of 

 the Senate (ordinarily the Vice-President), three b}^ the Speaker of 

 the House of Representatives, and six to be selected by Congress; 

 two of whom should be residents of the District of Columbia "nd 

 the other four from different States, no two being from the ; ime 

 State, The fundamental act further provides that the Secretary of 

 the Institution alread}^ defined shall also be the Secretary of the Board 

 of Regents. The Museum is primarily to contain objects of a.rt and 

 of foreign and curious research; next, objects of natural history, 

 plants, and geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the 

 United States. Provision is also made for a library, and the functions 

 of the Regents and of the Secretary were defined. 



The preamble of this bill states that Congress has received the prop- 

 erty of Smithson and provided "for the faithful execution of said 

 trust agreeable to the will of the liberal and enlightened donor." It 

 will thus ])e seen that the relations of the General Government to the 

 Smithsonian Institution are most extraordinary, one ma}' even say 

 unique, since the United States solemnly bound itself to the adminis- 

 tration of a trust. Probably never before has any ward found so 

 powerful a guardian. 



The first meeting of the Regents occurred on September 7, 184:6, 

 and in the autumn of the same year they elected as Secretary Joseph 

 Henry, then a professor at Princeton, known for his extraordinary 



