THIRTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1853-55. 565 



The fifth section also requires a library to be formed, and 

 the eighth section provides that the regents shall make 

 from the interest an appropriation, not exceeding an aver- 

 age of twenty-five thousand dollars annually, for the 

 gradual formation of a library composed of valuable works 

 pertaining to all departments of human knowledge. 



But this section cannot, by any fair construction of its 

 language, be deemed to imply that any appropriation to 

 that amount, or nearly so, was intended to be required. It 

 is not a direction to the regents to apply that sum, but a 

 prohibition to apply more; and it leaves it to the regents 

 to decide what amount within the sum limited can be 

 advantageously applied to the library, having a due regard 

 to the other objects enumerated in the law. 



Indeed, the eighth section would seem to be intended to 

 prevent the absorption of the funds of the Institution in the 

 purchase of books. And there would seem to be sound 

 reason for giving it that construction ; for such an applica- 

 tion of the funds could hardly be regarded as a faithful 

 execution of the trust ; for the collection of an immense 

 library at Washington would certainly not tend " to increase 

 or diffuse knowledge " in any other country, not even 

 among the countrymen of the testator; very few even of 

 the citizens of the United States would receive any benefit 

 from it. And if the money was to be so appropriated, it 

 would have been far better to buy the books and place them 

 at once in the Congress Library. They would be more ac- 

 ceptable to the public there, and it would have saved the 

 expense of a costly building and the salaries of the ofiicers ; 

 yet nobod}' would have listened to such a proposition, or 

 consented that the United States should take to itself and 

 for its own use the money which they accepted as a trust 

 for " the increase and dift'usion of knowledge among men." 



This is the construction which the regents have given to 

 the acts of Congress, and, in the opinion of the committee, 

 it is the true one ; and, acting under it, they have erected a 

 <3ommodious building, given their attention to all the 

 branches of science mentioned in the law, to the full extent 

 of the means aftbrded by the fund of the institution, and 

 have been forming a library of choice and valuable books, 

 amounting already to more than fifteen thousand volumes. 

 Tiie books are, for the most part, precisely of the character 

 calculated to carry out the intentions of the donor of the 

 fund and of the act of Congress. They are chiefly com- 

 posed of works published by or under the auspices of the 

 numerous institutions of Europe which are engaged in sci- 



