T niRTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1853-55. 599 



most limited sphere, grudges are multiplied, jealousies en- 

 gendered, resentments kindled, and complaints encountered 

 in all directions. Authors whose pieces are rejected will be 

 likely, in the course of time, to outnumber those who are ad- 

 mitted to the favored circle ; one man has the gratification of 

 seeing his works printed, at the public charge, in a splendid 

 style, and circulated, without trouble or expense on his part, 

 to all the learned societies and persons of Christendom, and 

 of feeling that a world-wide reputation is secured to him ; 

 but others, whose treatises have been condemned by a se- 

 cret tribunal, and returned with the stigma of rejection, 

 are brooding in sullen, or breaking out in vehement resent- 

 ment and indignation. 



Men of genius are sensitive — scientific authors and discov- 

 erers particularly so. To attain to great excellence in any 

 department, it must be studied and prosecuted with exclu- 

 sive and all-absorbing zeal. There is a divinity in truth, 

 and whoever attains any portion of it is prone to worship it 

 with a concentrated devotion, and to cherish it as more pre- 

 cious than all things else. However minute the objects, or 

 narrow the provinces, or apparently useless the results of 

 the researches of the man of science, he is wholly wrapt up 

 in them, and feels, to his very heart's core, that nothing 

 transcends them in importance. This makes him sensitive 

 to reputation, tenacious of rights, and morbidly alive to any 

 encroachment upon his labors or attainments. No oflice is 

 more thankless than to attempt to arbitrate the differences 

 of men of science — no ofience more keenly resented than 

 to discredit their claims or slight their productions. It is a 

 curious circumstance, and most instructive in this connec- 

 tion, strikingly illustrating the fact we are presenting, that 

 James Smithson, who was a fellow of the Royal Society, had 

 made a will, leaving his whole fortune to that institution, 

 which had honored many of his productions by publishing 

 them in its Transactions. At length, certain papers offered 

 to them for publication were refused. Under the sting of 

 resentment and wounded pride, he changed his will, and left 

 his fortune to the United States of America. In this way a 

 harvest of dissatisfaction and animosities is constantly ma- 

 turing. Patronage in politics is the fatal bane of parties. 

 In literature and science it works disastrously, in all direc- 

 tions — upon him who dispenses, upon those who receive, 

 and upon all from whom it is withheld. 



The organization of the Smithsonian Institution is as fol- 

 lows: 



