914 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON's BEQUEST. 



bouquets for the ladies, and "elegant tenements" for the 

 hangers-on of the party in power. All very good things in 

 their way, but not the things intended by Mr. Smithson. 

 The redeeming feature of this plan was the establishment 

 for printing. I apprehend, however, that it would have 

 proved merely a large leak to let oft* surplus funds. How 

 the treatises were to be disposed of I am not informed — 

 probably as gratuities to members of Congress and their 

 friends. Such a splendid group of establishments would 

 have exhausted the entire funds of the institution at the 

 outset. They would have served to garnish "the city of 

 magnificent distances" so long as they were supported from 

 the national treasury, but would have reflected but little 

 light upon the minds of the millions beyond its suburbs. 



The Hon. Mr. Choate proposed to amend the scheme of 

 Mr. Tappan, by appropriating to the library $20,000 per 

 annum, for twenty-five years. He retained all the other 

 features of the plan, excepting that he restricted the lectures 

 to the winter, and the publications to the lectures delivered. 

 The nation might well be proud of such a library. With a 

 little economy in the distribution of the spoils, twice the 

 amount, possibly, might be saved from the treasury. The 

 Government would do well to found such a library; if for 

 no other purpose, to aid the researches of our Prescotts, 

 Irvings, and Sparks. But this should be done with its own 

 money — not with this trust fund. To imprison knowledge 

 in 500,000 volumes of gilded calf, and lock it up behind 

 doors of glass and mahogany, would be a grand aftair — a 

 splendid thing for members of Congress to look upon. But 

 if it were created by the Smithsonian fund, it would be a 

 magnificent violation of the national faith! Mr. Smithson 

 gave his money in trust, to increase and difi'use knowledge 

 among men — not to stow it away on shelves of deal, inac- 

 cessible to all but the keeper and the moth ; at any rate, 

 wholly and forever inaccessible to the millions. So far from 

 carrying out the design of Mr. Smithson, it reverses it; and 

 instead of diftusing knowledge, concentrates it at Washing- 

 ton, where there is already one of the largest libraries in the 

 Union. 



The bill of the Hon. Mr. Owen provided for lectureships 

 on agriculture and chemistry; for the extensive use of the 

 press, in the diftusion of knowledge; and for a normal 

 school, for the education of teachers. The peculiar feature 

 of this bill, the normal school, would, I apprehend, differ 

 from the institution recommended by Doctors Chapin and 

 Wayland, as being inferior; and from a hundred academies 



