THIRTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1853-55. 610 



committee consisted of such scholars as Everett, Sparks, 

 and Longfellow, and such men of science as Peirce and 

 Gray. 



Since the appointment of this committee Professor Peirce, 

 of Harvard University, has renewed his testimony to the 

 wisdom of the plan of organization, and has spoken further 

 in relation to the etficiency of its execution. In a letter 

 addressed to the chairman of this committee, he says : 



" Of all men, none can be more sensible of the value of the great store- 

 houses of the wisdom of past ages than they who are obliged to resort to 

 them in the development of their own researches. The knowledge which 

 has already been given to the world, and which is accumulated in the library, 

 stimulates and invigorates the mind for original thoughts, and supplies im- 

 portant materials for investigation ; it is to the author what the collection 

 of models in the Patent Office is to the inventor ; but, nevertheless, the in- 

 crease of knowledge depends chiefly upon the native vigor of intellect, and 

 its diffusion is performed by the press. To the strong mind the collections 

 of the Vatican are a golden opportunity, richer than the mineral harvest 

 of California ; but not richer than the hills and streams which abound 

 within every man's fight ; not richer than the stone beneath our feet, on 

 which is written the history of the world ; than the leaf of the forest, on 

 which is inscribed the thought of its Creator ; or than the cloud in the 

 lightnings of which the laws and the glory of God are as distinctly re- 

 vealed to the faithful of the present generation as they were upon Mount 

 Sinai. 



" The valuable contributions to knowledge which have already been made 

 by the Smithsonian Institution, are a living proof that vast libraries are 

 not necessary to the development of new thoughts. If you will compare 

 these memoirs with the scientific productions of the same period in Europe, 

 you may find them perchance inferior in erudition, but not in profoundness 

 and originality of thought. Do you believe that Smithson, who was him- 

 self engaged in chemical investigations, could have intended a library by 

 his words " an institution for the increase and diffusion of knowledge 

 among men ?" If you will examine his nine memoirs to the Koyal Society, 

 of which he was an active member, and his eighteen other contributions to 

 science, you will not find one of them which required a library for its pro- 

 duction. Each was the natural growth of a deeply thinking mind. Smith- 

 son was emphatically a maker and not a collector of books ; and in the 

 scientific circle to which he belonged, the ordinary use of language would 

 have totally precluded the interpretation which some men of quite a differ- 

 ent cast of mind have presumed to impose upon his words. Expand his 

 largeness of expression to its utmost extent ; include in it all that a gener- 

 ous mind like his own would desire it to embrace ; but let it not be cramped 

 and twisted out of shape, and so forced from its original design that it shall 

 wholly fail to accomplish the object of the munificent testator. 



Most earnestly, then, in the name of science, and especially of Ameri- 

 can science, do 1 protest against such a gross perversion of this important 

 trust. I assure you, sir, that the great body of scientific men throughout 

 the country warmly approve Professor Henry's plan of conducting the 

 Smithsonian Institution, and regard it as a faithful exponent of the almost 

 undivided opinion of scientific and learned men as to the proper execution 

 of Smithson's will and the law of Congress. 



Professor Agassiz, also of Harvard University, Cam- 

 hridge, whose fame as a naturalist is second to that of no 

 man living, has given, in a letter to the chairman of the 



