856 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 



In the foregoing suggestions as to the nature of the insti- 

 tution, sent to you in compliance with the President's call, 

 I have confined myself to a very general outline and a few 

 reflections. The subject has many aspects, and I have dealt 

 only with some of them, and those partially. It is intrin- 

 sically one on which much diversity of opinion may be 

 expected to prevail, and that hardly any discussion could 

 exhaust. However honored by the President's call, and 

 desirous of responding to it adequately, I have felt incom- 

 petent to the task of going into the arrangements in detail 

 necessary to the complete organization of an institution, 

 designed by its philanthropic founder to be so universal in 

 its scope, so far-reaching in its benefits. It ought to have 

 all the simplicity compatible with its ends ; but these are 

 momentous, since they may run, by their effects into dis- 

 tant ages. It is like a new power coming into the republic — 

 its means the human mind ; its ends still the triumphs of 

 the mind; its fields of glory beneficent and saving — a 

 power to give new force to the moral elements of our insti- 

 tutions, helping to illustrate, strengthen, and adorn them. 

 Such, in my humble conception, it is, or may be made. 

 Even as to the brief outline I venture upon, for the plan of 

 such an institution, I must repeat how greatly I distrust 

 myself, sketched as it has been, without consultation with 

 others, giving their thoughts to the same subject, who might 

 have corrected, modified, and improved, my own. If any 

 of these can be turned to the least profit in abler hands, or 

 serve to start better ones in better minds, I shall be amply 

 rewarded. 



I beg to add that this communication would have been 

 sooner sent to you, but for interruptions incident to the first 

 month or two after returning to my home after a two years' 

 absence. 



With great respect, I have the honor to be your obedient 

 servant, 



Richard Rush. 



To John Forsyth, 



Secretary of State of the United States. 



Letter from S. Chapin. 



College Hill, 

 Washington, D. C, November 26, 1838. 

 Sir : In an interview I had with you sometime since, yon 

 desired me to express my views respecting the anticipated 



