844 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 



its annual income. The opinions which I gave were general, 

 and of course not matured. Further reflection since that 

 time has but slightly modified them, and I have not since 

 had the opportunity of consulting with any person in my 

 own judgment qualified to give counsel, at once judicious 

 and perfectly disinterested, for the disposal of the fund. 



The provision made at the last session of Congress was 

 made merely for an investment for a few montlis, that the 

 fund should, after the arrival of the money in this country, 

 not remain unoccupied, even until the next session of Con- 

 gress. The object now first deserving attention will be to 

 secure the permanency of the fund entire; for vyhich pur- 

 pose, I must indulge the hope that it will not be intrusted to 

 any bank, nor loaned upon any pledge of State stocks. 



I should greatly prefer that it should be disposed of as 

 was the fund of one hundred thousand dollars which had 

 been held by the President of the United States, in trust for 

 an annuity of six thousand dollars, payable to the Seneca 

 Indians. By the act of February 19, 1831, the whole fund 

 was placed to the credit of the Department of War, and 

 the duty of making the annual payment to the Seneca tribe 

 was assigned to the Secretary. In the present case, the 

 whole fund might pass to the credit of the Treasury of the 

 United States, and the annual payment be directed to be 

 made by the Secretary of the Treasury. The fund of course 

 to be redeemable at the discretion of Congress, and other- 

 wise invested for the objects of the Institution. 



This would give an annual appropriation of 30,000 dol- 

 lars, and, to keep the fund permanently unimpaired, the 

 annual appropriation should be confined to that sum. 



I think that no part of the money should be applied to 

 the endowment of any school, college, university, or eccle- 

 siastical establishment ; to no institution for the education 

 of youth, for that is a sacred obligation, binding upon the 

 people of this Union themselves, at their own expense and 

 charge, and for which it would be unworthy of them to 

 accept an eleemosynary donation from any foreigner whom- 

 soever. Nor do I believe it to have been strictly within 

 the intention of the testator. For the immediate object of 

 the education of youth is not the increase and diff"usion of 

 knowledge among men, but the instruction of children in 

 that which is already known. Its result is doubtless to dif- 

 fuse, and may be to increase, knowledge among men ; and 

 so is apprenticeship to trades, and so is the tillage of the 

 ground ; and so was to the ancient shepherds of Egypt and 

 Chaldea the nightly keeping of their flocks, for it enabled 



