PROGRAMME OF ORGANIZATION'. 13 



orable trust, without any profitable interest in the government that 

 has undertaken to carry out the objects of tlie benevolent testator. 

 The obligations of good iaith require that the bequest should be main- 

 tained in th& spirit in which it was made. Tlie acts of Congress on 

 this subject were intended to effect this end, and the question pre- 

 sented is this : Have the Regents done their duty according to the 

 requirements of the acts of Congress on the subject? 



"In order to determine whether any, and if any, what, action of 

 the Senate is necessary and proper in regard to the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution, it is necessary to examine what provisions Congress have 

 already made on the subject, and whether they have been faithfully 

 carried into execution. 



" The money with which this Institution has been founded was be- 

 queathed to the United States by James Smithson, of London, to 

 found at Wasliington, under the name of the ' Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion,' an establishment ' for the increase and diffusion of knowledge 

 among men.' It is not bequeathed to the United States to be used 

 for their own benefit and advantage only, but in trust to apply to 

 ' the increase and diffusion of knowledge' among mankind generally, 

 so that other men and other nations might share in its advantage as 

 well as ourselves. 



" Congress accepted the trust, and by the act of August 10, 1846, 

 established an institution to carry into effect the intention of the tes- 

 tator. The language of the will left a very wide discretion in the 

 manner of executing the trust, and different opinions might very nat- 

 urally be entertained on the subject. And it is very evident by the 

 law above referred to that Congress did not deem it advisable to pre- 

 scribe any definite and fixed plan, and deemed it more proper to con- 

 fide that duty to a Board of Regents, carefully selected, indicating 

 only in general terms the objects to which their attention was to be 

 directed in executing the testator's intention. 



''■ Thus, by the fifth section, the Regents were required to cause a 

 building to be erected of sufficient size^ and with suitable rooms or 

 halls, for the reception and arrangement, upon a liberal scale, of ob- 

 jects of natural history, including a geological and mineralogical 

 cabinet ; also a chemical laboratory, a library, a gallery of art, and 

 the necessary lecture-rooms. It is evident that Congress intended by 

 these provisions that the funds of the institution should be applied to 

 increase knowledge in all of the branches of science mentioned in this 

 section — in objects of natural history, in geology, in mineralogy, in 

 chemistry, in the arts — and that lectures were to be delivered upon 

 such topics as the Regents might deem useful in the execution of the 

 trmst. And publications by the institution were undoubtedly neces- 

 sary to diffuse generally the knowledge that might be obtained ; for 

 any increase of knowledge that might thus be acquired was not to be 

 locked up in the institution or preserved only for the use of the citi- 

 zens of Washington, or persons who might visit the institution. It 

 was by the express terms of the trust, which the United States was 

 ple.dged to execute, to be diffused among men. This could be done 

 in no other way than by publications at the expense of the Institu- 

 tion. Nor has Congress prescribed the sums which shall be appro- 



