PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF REGENTS. X X 1 1 1 



fast that the child is tending to become larger than the parent. There are signs thai 

 the Committee on Appropriations is at last coining to see the inevitable necessity of 

 enlarging the Museum buildings, and with this enlargement will come an increased 

 expenditure and a new era of responsibility for its management. With a million 

 dollars or more of annual expenditure the Museum will be more like other great 

 bureaus of the Government. I can say that I think the present system of adminis- 

 tration through the Regents is not only free from every suspicion of political influ- 

 ence, but through the method of election and appointment of its governing body and 

 officers, has an assurance of permanence and of unselfish administration winch no 

 other method known to our Government affords. 



The Secretary is, under the fundamental law, the Keeper of the Museum. 

 Although a scientific man himself, he is not disposed in this connection to favor one 

 branch of science as against another. (At least, if I may speak for myself, 1 think I 

 am not.) While retaining in his own hands so much of the authority which the 

 Regents and the law have imposed on him as is necessary for a proper coordination 

 of all the interests of the Institution, and while personally passing upon all matters 

 of policy, relations with important foreign and domestic establishments and all 

 unusual or extraordinary expenditures, he has always managed the details of the 

 Museum administration through an Assistant Secretary. Such men as Baird, Go< » le, 

 Walcott, and Rathbun have successively filled this office, and in every instance not 

 only deserved the confidence of the Regents and the Secretary, but have gained the 

 confidence of the scientific community. 



I think, then, that the present plan of administration is working well, but I desire 

 the Regents to bear in mind that an extension of the work to be done is likely to be 

 later demanded by scientific public opinion; that the time has nearly come when 

 Congress will look favorably upon it, and that when the time for this extension 

 actually does come I hope they will feel that their own just and impartial rule is the 

 best that the Museum is likely to have in the future, as it is that which has built it 

 up in the past, guaranteeing as it does deliberation and fairness in the selection of 

 the Museum officers and a stability in its policy. 



There is something to be said with regard to each of the other bureaus, but the 

 Regents will find this set forth in the Report, particularly with regard to the Secre- 

 tary's personal efforts made last year to extend the field of the Bureau of Exchanges. 

 I wish, however, before concluding these statements to the Regents, to revert to a 

 subject on which I have already asked their advice and which is of fundamental 

 importance. 



The Chancellor remarked on a previous occasion that the time seemed to be coming 

 when the Institution would be more and more in the way of receiving gifts, like the 

 Hodgkins gift. I hope and believe that this opinion will be justified, and I have 

 had the pleasure of bringing some evidences of it "before the Regents this morning, 

 but I ask them to bear in mind, with regard to the Smithsonian Institution, which has 

 been called an anomaly in our Government, that its best feature, and that which 

 makes it a happy anomaly, is that while the whole is in the care of the State, there 

 is an independent fund under the Regents' control. Now I beg them to consider 

 that this all-important feature of independence is every year lessening in its character, 

 owing to the decreasing relative importance of the fund by reason of the changing 

 value of money, and the enormously increased wealth of the country around it. 

 Thus in 1850 the Smithsonian Institution's fund was over $600,000. This was at the 

 time a noble foundation, but how relatively small it is to-day can be seen from the 

 greatly increased funds now in the hands of other institutions of learning. I have 

 written to the presidents of a number of the principal American universities in 

 existence in 1850 and asked the extent of their endowment at that time. 



Fifty years ago, the President of Yale University informs me, the funds of that 

 great institution were about $300,000. At that time the Smithsonian Institution 



