664 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



the men who composed the first Board of Regents, of which 

 I was not one, were among the best men in the country, 

 and that they established this institution upon the plan by 

 which it is now known, and which has received the delib- 

 erate assent of the Committee of the Judiciary of the Sen- 

 ate, and of the Senate itself. How the Senator gets at his 

 theory of Smithson's intentions I do not know. If he has 

 ever read Smithson's will he will not find one word of all 

 that he has said in it ; and we, who do know something 

 about the history of Smithson, know the peculiar reasons 

 which induced him to give this legacy to the United States. 



But, sir, the Senator has remarked about an exhibition 

 given at the institution a few days since. I wish to explain 

 that. It might be supposed by members of the Senate that 

 this twenty-five cents a head was a fee to the institution. 

 No such thing. The Smithsonian Institution has a remark- 

 ably fine lecture-room, and it is very often applied for by 

 individuals who wish to lecture there. In no case is it given 

 to an individual who charges. The only case in which any 

 one is allowed to charge is where the object is charitable or 

 religious. Church congregations have sometimes applied 

 for it when a lecture was to be delivered, and they have 

 been allowed in that case to use the hall, and they them- 

 selves charge twenty-five cents for each hearer of the lec- 

 ture — making a fund for the building of their church, or for 

 the charitable object which is to be subserved, whatever it 

 may be. These are the only cases where a charge is 

 made. The lectures of the Smithsonian Institution are al- 

 was free ; and I believe they are a little more valuable than 

 most lectures in the country for which people pay very will- 

 ingly. 



Now, so far as the Government giving $10,000 a year to 

 this institution is concerned, it is an entire mistake. The 

 Smithsonian Institution accommodated and obliged the 

 Government by admitting within their walls these collec- 

 tions, for which the Government had no proper place, the 

 Government only paying the expense of their preservation; 

 that is all. The Smithsonian Institution does not derive any 

 value to its funds from these appropriations by the Govern- 

 ment. So in regard to the distribution of these enormous 

 collections, the institution is not benefitted a fraction. All 

 we want is a little appropriation to defray the expense 

 which the institution must incur in classifying and separat- 

 ing these specimens of natural history for distribution. I 

 do not object to the amendment of the Senator from North 



