14 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



RELATIONS OF THE MUSEUM TO THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 



The Sinithsoniiiii Institution, although it bears the name of a for- 

 eigner, lias for hiilf a century been one of the most important agencies 

 in the intellectual life of our people. It has been a rallying point for 

 the workers in every department of scientitic and educational work, 

 and the chief agency for the free exchange of books, apparatus of 

 research, and of scientific intelligence between this and other coun- 

 tries. Its publications, which include more than two hundred volumes, 

 are to be found in all the important libraries in the world, and some of 

 them, it is safe to say, on the work-table of every scientitic investigator. 

 Its great library constitutes an integral and very important part of the 

 national collection at the Capitol, and its Museum is the richest in 

 existence in many branches of the natural history and ethnology of 

 the New World. Many wise and enlightened scholars have given their 

 best years to its service, and some of the most eminent men of science 

 to whom our country has given birth, have passed their entire lifetime 

 in working for its success. 



Through these books, through the reputation of the men who have 

 worked for it and through it, and through the good accomplished by 

 its system of international exchange, by means of which within the 

 past forty-three years nearly one and a half million packages of books 

 and other scientific and literary materials have been distributed to 

 every region of the earth, it has acquired a reputation at least as far- 

 reaching as that of any other institution of learning in the world. 



It is therefore representative of what is deemed in other lands the 

 chief glory of this nation, for whatever may be thought in other coun- 

 tries of American art and literature, or of American institutions 

 generally, the science of America is everywhere accepted as sound, 

 vigorous, and i)rogressive. 



In the scientific journals of Great Britain and other Euro])ean coun- 

 tries the reader finds most appreciative reviews of the scientific publi- 

 cations of the Smithsonian, tlie Museum, the Bureau of Ethnology, the 

 Geological Survey, the Department of Agriculture, and the Fish Com- 

 mission, and they are constantly holding uj) the Government of the 

 United States as an example of what governments should do for the 

 support of their scientific institutions. 



It is surely a legitimate source of pride to Americans that their work 

 in science should be so thoroughly appreciated by other nations, and it 

 is important that the reputation should be maintained. Nothing can 

 be more in consonance with the spirit of our Government, nor more in 

 accord with the injunction of Washington in his Farewell Address, 

 admiringly quoted by Sir Lyon Playfair in his address as president of 

 the British Association for the Advancement of Science: 



Promote, then, as an object of prvmary importance, in.stitntions for the 

 tjvneral di fusion of Icnowledge. 



