TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS, 1843-45. 307 



owD knowledge, lie has taken muck — and, so far as I can 

 see or conceive — disinterested pains, and wkich affords us 

 an opportunity to discharge a plain duty, perhaps too long 

 delayed. 



I think, too, sir, that the Senator has, in the first section 

 of the bill, declared the true fundamental law according to 

 which this fund ought to be permanently administered. 

 He lends to the United States the whole sum of $508,318 

 actually received out of the English chancery, from the 3d 

 of December, 1838, when it was received, at an interest of 

 six per cent, per annum. He leaves the sum of |209,103, 

 which is so much of the interest as will have accrued on 

 the first day of July next, to be applied at once to the con- 

 struction of buildings, the preparation of grounds, the 

 purchase of books, instruments, and the like ; and then 

 appropriates the interest, and the interest only, of the origi- 

 nal principal sum, for the perpetual maintenance of the 

 institution, leaving the principal itself unimpaired forever. 

 This, all, is exactly as it should be. 



But when you examine the bill a little further, to discern 

 what it is exactly which this considerable expenditure of 

 money is to accomplish — when you look to see how and 

 how much it is going " to increase and diffuse knowledge 

 among men," I am afraid that we shall have reason to be 

 a little less satisfied. I do not now refer to the constitution 

 of the board of management, of which, let me say, under 

 some important modifications, I incline to approve ; although 

 on that I reserve myself. I speak of what the fund, how- 

 ever managed, is to be made to do. The bill assumes, as it 

 ought, to apply it " to increase and diffuse knowledge 

 among men." Well, how does it accomplish this object ? 



It proposes to do so, for substance, by establishing in this 

 city a school or college for the purpose of instructing its 

 pupils in the application of certain physical sciences to 

 certain arts of life. The plan, if adopted, founds a college 

 in Washington to teach the scientific principles of certain 

 useful arts. That is the whole of it. It appoints, on per- 

 manent salaries, a professor of agriculture, horticulture, 

 and rural economy; a professor of natural history; a pro- 

 fessor of chemistry ; a professor of geology ; a professor of 

 astronomy; a professor of architecture and domestic sci- 

 ence ; together with a fluctuating force of occasional auxil- 

 iary lecturers; and all these professors and lecturers are 

 enjoined " to have special reference, in all their illustra- 

 tions and instructions, to the productive and liberal arts of 

 life — to improvements in agriculture, manufactures, trades, 



