428 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



or decked in colors more gorgeous than the Tyrian purple ? 

 Can the chemistry of England compound more brilliant 

 or more durable pigments than those which decorate the 

 walls of the catacombs of the Nile? Can the modern 

 artist, with all the aid of his new magnifiers, rival the 

 microscopic minuteness of some ancient mosaics ; or can 

 the glass-workers of our times surpass the counterfeit gems 

 of antiquity ? 



Sir, modern chemistry, metallurgy, and machinery, have 

 multiplied, cheapened, and diffused — not improved — the 

 products of industrial art ; and herein lies our superiority, 

 not that we can do better, but, by bringing to our aid the 

 obedient forces of nature, we can do more, than our prede- 

 cessors. In this point of view, regarding modern improve- 

 ments in these arts as the great equalizers of the conditions 

 of different ranks in society, no man can estimate them 

 more highly than I do, and I hope soon to have an opportu- 

 nity of showing that I duly appreciate them. But I must 

 protest against that classification of the objects of human 

 knowledge, which, by giving them an undue pre-eminence, 

 elevates empiricism above true science, prefers matter to 

 mind, and, in its zeal to advance the means, quite loses sight 

 of the end. 



Sir, these arts are the right hand, not the spirit, of true 

 progressive democracy ; they arc the lever that shall move 

 the world, not the immaterial mind that shall guide it. 



Mr. Chairman, at present I neither propose nor expect 

 any modification of this bill. I am content with it as an 

 experiment, though I should prefer the appropriation of 

 the entire income of the fund for one generation — three 

 times only as long as it has now lain idle — to the purpose of 

 founding such a library as the world has not yet seen. 

 If I support the bill, 1 shall support it, I repeat, as an 

 experiment, but in the confident hope that the plan will 

 soon be so changed as to make the Smithsonian Institution 

 a fitter representative of a charity which embraces all knowl- 

 edge as its object, and appoints the whole human race its 

 beneficiaries. 



Mr. Morse said he desired to submit a few observations 

 in relation to the disposition of this fund. 



Expressing the pleasure which ho had derived from the 

 argument of the learned and eloquent gentleman, [Mr. 

 Marsh,] who had just taken his seat, he [Mr. Morse] was 

 still of opinion tliat if anything could be drawn from the 

 character of the testator, or from his habits and pursuits, as 

 to the direction which ho desired his bequest should take, it 



