64G CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



" increase," and its appropriate and timely liberality fur- 

 nished the funds and means for the dissemination. 



It has already been remarked, that the unique character 

 of Mr. Smithson's bequest rendered it difficult of adminis- 

 tration upon any plan that should not be sanctioned b^' some 

 experience, and hence, if there should be suggested a slight 

 departure from the requirements of the letter of the law of 

 1846, by which the institution was organized for action, it 

 must not be understood as censuring the views of those 

 who labored in the plan and secured the efficient and 

 desirable action of Congress, At that time gentlemen of 

 the highest distinction in literature and science differed in 

 their views of the best means of carrying out the wishes of 

 the founder. Each had a favorite theory as it regards the 

 efficiency of certain means or modes, and that difference 

 arose greatly from previous habits and associations, or from 

 the influence w^hich the greater mind had upon the less. 



It cannot be denied that the creation of an immense 

 library was a favorite, and the dominant idea of many who, 

 at that time, leaned entirely upon foreign writers for infor- 

 mation, and resorted to books rather than to experiments 

 and observations for exact information on any science. 

 Such a course seems natural, where it had been universal, 

 and the opinions are likely to be operative just in propor- 

 tion to the dependence of minds upon books; and hence a 

 vast collection of volumes in any cit}' of the fourth, or fifth 

 class in point of size, and, as yet of no particular class in 

 point of science and literature, seemed to promise a fulfill- 

 ment of the wishes of Smithson. 



Yet these volumes were not to " increase the amount of 

 knowledge among men;" they only recorded the existing 

 amount, were merely the storehouses of what had been 

 gathered and kept in the city of Washington, as yet only 

 the political centre of the nation, and it is difficult to see 

 how they would serve greatly to " diffuse that knowledge 

 among men." 



Another part of the plan is the establishment of a mu- 

 seum, and, in the opinion of the committee, this, if kept 

 within just bounds, is a valuable part of the general plan. 

 The danger is that a museum, instead of being what its 

 name implies, will become a receptacle for all the freaks of 

 nature which a morbid curiosity may discover, and the 

 resort of those who would rather be amused with a Iush» 

 naturoe of any kind than with a well arranged and instruc- 

 tive display of products in their scientific order. 



A museum for the Smithsonian Institution should be of a 



