112 BOARD OF REGENTS. 



in many cases can be distributed to professors in colleges, who, for a small addition to 

 their salaries, will furnish results which could not be procured in the institution for 

 many times the same sum. 



" The maxim stated in the programme, namely, that few individuals ought to be 

 permanently supported by the institution, should be constantly kept in view, and the 

 greatest caution exercised in adding new members to the permanent corps. 



"The institution, in order to produce the greatest amount of useful effect with a 

 given expenditure of income, must be a unit in plan and a unit in purpose. Each 

 assistant must not merely have regard to the advancement of his own specialty, but 

 the good of the whole ; and though he may be assigned a specific duty, he should be 

 ready and willing, at the call of the Secretary, to render service in any other. With- 

 out a system of government which will insure this, not only the usefuluess of the 

 institution will be greatly abridged, but its very existence jeoparded." 



The committee submit to the Board the following resolutions : 



Resolved, That the seventh resolution, passed by the Board of Regents on the 26th 

 of January, 1847, requiring an equal division of the income between the active oper- 

 ations and the museum and library, when the buildings are completed, be and it is 

 hereby repealed. 



Resolved, That hereafter the annual appropriations shall be apportioned specifically 

 among the different objects and operations of the institution, in such manner as may, 

 in the judgment of the Begents, be necessary and proper, for each, according to its 

 intrinsic importance, and a compliance in good faith with the law. 

 Bespectfully submitted. 



JAMES A. PEABCE, Chairman. 



Mr. Mason offered the following resolution ; which was adopted : 



Resolved, That the report of the Special Committee just made be laid on the table 

 for further consideration, and that the papers referred to in the report be communi- 

 cated to the Board for their examination ; and that said report, and such report of a 

 minority of the committee as may be made in the recess of the Board, be printed. 



On motion of Mr. English, the Board then adjourned, to meet on 

 Saturday, the 8th of July, at 10 o'clock, a. m. 



July 8, 1854. 



An adjourned meeting of the Board of Regents was held on Sat- 

 urday, July 8, at 10 o'clock, a. m. 



Present, Messrs. Bache, Douglas, English, Hawley, Mason, Pearce, 

 Rush, Stuart, Totten, Towers, and the Secretary. 



In the absence of the Chancellor, Mr. Hawley was called to the 

 chair. 



John T. Towers, Esq., mayor elect of the city of Washington, 

 appeared and took the seat in the Board vacated by Mr. Maury 

 late mayor. 



The Secretary laid before the Board the sixth volume of Smith- 

 sonian Contributions to Knowledge. 



Mr. Mason, from the Select Committee, on the resolutions of 

 Messrs. Fitch and Meacham, offered the following resolution : 



" The Secretary of the institution and of this Board is, by the seventh section of 

 the act 'to establish the Smithsonian Institution,' required to discharge the duties of 

 ' librarian and keeper of the museum,' having, with the consent of the Board of Re- 

 gents, power to employ assistants, the better to enable him to discharge those duties ; 

 for a better construction whereof — 



