THIRTY-THIRD CONGRESS, 1853-55. 635 



honorably, if that institution becomes what Congress in- 

 tended, as if it becomes anything else. Is not the British 

 Museum or the Bodleian Library as well known as any 

 other institution in the world ? 



To the phrase '■'■active operations,'^ I will devote a passing 

 word. 



The publication of books and the assumption of researches 

 have been called ^'■active operations," as if everything else 

 were in comparison but standstill. I should have liked to 

 see activity in iinishing the building, and in filling it with 

 the stores of knowledge. Active operations of this kind 

 would have tended " to stimulate and invigorate the mind 

 for original thought, and supply important materials for in- 

 vestigation," to use the language of one of the gentlemen 

 who has been quoted to show that anything but an exclu- 

 sive devotion of this fund to science is a " gross perversion" 

 of the trust. It has been repeated to me that another of 

 these gentlemen was in the habit a few years ago of saying, 

 "you can do nothing for science in this country till you 

 have books — large libraries" — and this he said in special 

 reference to the Smithsonian Library. But then, sir, the 

 Smithsonian question had not become one of physical sci- 

 ence versus everything else. 



One gentleman refers to the great Humboldt as not the 

 possessor of a private library. But he had constant access 

 to the Royal Library of Berlin, one of the best in the 

 world. Now, what we want is to furnish scientific and lit- 

 erary men in this country with such public facilities for 

 research, that they will not, on the one hand, be obliged to 

 expend their limited means in buying for themselves, nor, 

 on the other, abandon their researches for the want of books. 

 For us, this case of Humboldt is remarkably apropos. 



In order to show how intensely active these •' active ope- 

 rations" are, the gentleman from Indiana has quoted a long 

 list of works published by the institution. But, sir, you will, 

 probably, be surprised to learn, that with the exception of 

 a few octavo pamphlets, making in all only about one thou- 

 sand pages, the first six titles include the whole that follow. The 

 rest are merely the table of contents of the first six. Six 

 quarto volumes, making less than three thousand pages and 

 about enough in octavo to make a volume of one thousand 

 pages exhibit the sum and substance of the " active opera- 

 tions" of the Smithsonian Institution for eight years — say 

 five hundred pages, great and small, a year. 



I have heard it argued that the " active operations " are 

 justifiable, on the ground that Congress ordained a labora- 



