210 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



portance for the organization of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, in the manner the most effective for accomplishing the 

 purposes of the testator. 



The first of these principles is, that the capital sum of 

 the Smithsonian fund should he preserved entire and un- 

 impaired, invested in such manner as to secure a yearly 

 income of six per cent, and a perpetual annuity for yearly 

 appropriation for all future time. The reasons for this are 

 so ohvious and so urgent, that it was scarcely to he antic- 

 ipated they would meet with any deliberate opposition. 

 The object of the testator's bequest is as comprehensive as 

 the human mind, and as durable as the existence of the 

 race of man upon earth. The increase and diffusion of 

 knowledge is, in its nature, progressive to the end of time. 

 An institution which should exhaust in its first establish- 

 ment and organization the whole, or the principal part of 

 the bequest, would necessarily be confined within limits 

 exceedingly narrow, compared with the vast design of 

 increasing and difl'using knowledge. It would also, as may 

 be concluded from uniform experience, be unable for an}' 

 long series of years to sustain itself, but would gradually 

 sink into insignificance and apathy, or require continual 

 support from public or private munificence. The Smith- 

 sonian fund exceeds half a million of dollars : by investing 

 it safely, under the guaranty of the nation's faith, to yield 

 a yearly income of six per cent., it places at the disposal of 

 Congress a sum of more than thirty thousand dollars to be 

 applied every year to any object promotive of the increase 

 and diffusion of knowledge. The means of attaining this 

 end Avill, from the very progressive nature of knowledge, 

 vary from time to time. Knowledge, in her progress over 

 the world of mind, pours, like the father of the floods, her 

 waters into the ocean of time, swollen by the tributary 

 accession of unnumbered streams. 



This was among the principal considerations, connect- 

 ing the first of these fundamental principles with the 

 second — that no part of the Smithsonian fund, principal or 

 interest, shall be applied to any school, college, university, 

 institute of education, or ecclesiastical establishment. 



There are in these United States ninety-five universities 

 and colleges, besides high schools, academies, and common 

 schools without number. The objects of all these institu- 

 tions is one and the same — education from infancy to man- 

 hood. The subjects of instruction are all .the departments 

 of human science, from the primer and the spelling book 

 to the theory of infinites and the mechanism of the heavens. 



