366 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



House of Eepresentatives, April 22, 1846. 



The Speaker announced the special order of the day to 

 be the bill in relation to the Smithsonian Institution. 



Mr. Owen moved that the House resolve itself into Com- 

 mittee of the Whole on the state of the Union, which mo- 

 tion was agreed to. 



The Speaker invited to the chair Mr. Seaborn Jones, w'ho 

 excused himself on the ground that he had but a limited 

 acquaintance with the members. 



Mr. Burt having then been addressed by the Speaker, ac- 

 cepted the invitation. 



Whereupon the House resolved itself into Committee of 

 the Whole on the state of the Union, (Mr. Burt, of South 

 Carolina, in the chair,) and proceeded to the consideration 

 of the bill entitled " A bill to establish the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution for the increase and difiusion of knowledge among 

 men." 



The bill having been read through, was taken up by sec- 

 tions; and the iirst section being under consideration, Mr. 

 G. W. Jones moved that the said section bo stricken out. 



Mr. Owen said : We have been unfortunate, in this coun- 

 try, in the administration of legacies bequeathed by benev- 

 olent men for the imjjrovemcnt of our race. Of the noble 

 Girard fund, three quarters of a million of dollars are lost 

 forever, and though half a generation has passed away since 

 the eccentric Philadelphian died, not one child has yet reaped 

 the benefit of his munificent bequest. A temple has indeed 

 arisen that outshines Greece and her Parthenon ; its sump- 

 tuous Corinthian pillars, each one costing a sum that w^ould 

 have endowed a professorship, are the admiration of be- 

 holders and the boast of the Quaker city ; but ^-ears must 

 yet elapse before the first son of indigence can ascend the 

 steps of that princely portico, and sit down within those 

 marble halls to receive the education for which its simple 

 and unostentatious founder sought to provide. 



Yet it is not for us of this National Legislature to arraign 

 as dilator}'^, the corporation of Philadelphia. It is sixteen 

 years since James Smithson died, leaving to the United 

 States the reversion of more than half a million of dollars, 

 to found, in this District, an institution " for the increase 

 and diff'usion of knowledge among men." It will be ten 

 years, on the 1st of July next, since this Government sol- 

 emnly accepted the trust created by Mr. Smithson's will. 

 It will be eight years next September since the money was 

 obtained from the English Court of Chancery and paid into 



