212 CONGRESSIONAL PKOCEEDINGS. 



usefulness, and relieve it at the same time from the embar- 

 rassment under which it labors. But while it would be 

 manifestly unjust to that college to establish in its immedi- 

 ate vicinity a rival institution more richly endowed from 

 foreign funds, it might be deemed an application not less 

 exceptionable of those funds to the relief or assistance of 

 one particular establishment in this city, narrowing down 

 the general purpose of increasing and diffusing knowledge 

 among men to the special benefit and emolument of one 

 over-burdened seminary of learning. 



Among the reasons for discarding all institutions of educa- 

 tion from the purview of the Smithsonian bequest, the com- 

 mittee of the House at the last seasion were not insensible 

 to the consideration that the acceptance of a bequest, 

 coupled with a trust for the increase and diffusion of knowl- 

 edge among men, by the United States of America, imported 

 a career of action in the execution of the trust more com- 

 prehensive in its object, more extensive in its design, and 

 therefore more appropriate for the exercise of national 

 powers, than the mere education of children. 



The education of children is, in all civilized and Christian 

 communities, in the first instance a solemn and imperative 

 duty of their parents. It stands in the first rank of domes- 

 tic and family duties; and so far as it connects itself with 

 social relations, and becomes a subject of legislation, it be- 

 longs to that class of interests and concerns which, under 

 our complicated system of government, are considered as 

 exclusively confined to the authorities of the separate 

 States. Whether Congress possess, under the Constitution, 

 the power to establish a national university, is at least a 

 matter of doubt ; and although they have exclusive juris- 

 diction in all cases whatever over the District of Columbia, 

 in which the city of Washington is situated, yet an institute 

 of learning coextensive only with the District of Columbia 

 must necessarily be confined, in all its administrations, as 

 much within that District as the universities and colleges 

 within the several States are limited by their respective 

 jurisdictions. Nor did it seem to the committee altogether 

 consistent with the self-respect of a great confederated 

 nation to receive from the hands of a foreigner a liberal 

 fund for the increase and diffusion of knowledge through- 

 out the world of man, and apply it to the schooling of 

 their own children. 



The peculiar expressions used by the testator himself, in 

 the indication of the ultimate result of his purpose, and 

 the selection of his trustee, concur in confirming this view 



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