14 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1893. 



our country has j;iven birth to have passed their entire lifetime in work 

 for its success. Its publications, 1>7() in number, which when combined 

 make up over 200 dijiiiitied volumes, are to be found in every important 

 library in the world, and some of them, it is safe to say, on the working 

 table of every scientific investigator in the world. 



Througii these books, through the reputation of the men who have 

 worked for it and thnnigh it, and through the good accomplished by 

 its system of international exchange, by means of which within the 

 past forty two years 1,380,075 packages of books and other scientific 

 and literary materials have been distributed to every region of the 

 earth, it has acquired a reputation at least as far reaching as that of 

 any other institution of learning in tlu' world. 



It is therefore representative of what is deemed in other lands the 

 chief glory of this nation, for whatever may be thought in other coun- 

 tries of American art. of American literature, or American institutions 

 geneially, the science of America is accepted without (juestion as equal 

 to the best. 



In the scientific journals of Great Britaiu and other European coun- 

 tries the reader finds most appreciative reviews of the scientific publi- 

 cations of the Smithsonian, the Museum, the Bureau of Ethnology, the 

 Geological Survey, the Department of Agriculture, and the Fish Com 

 mission, and they are constantly holding up the Government of the 

 United States as an example of what governments should do for the 

 support of their scientific institutions. 



It is surely a legitimate source of ])ride to Americans that their work 

 in science should be so thoroughly appreciated by other nations, and 

 it is important that the reputation should be maintained. Nothing can 

 be more in consonance with the spirit of our Government, nor more in 

 accord with the injunction of WavShington in his Farewell Address, 

 admiringly quoted by Sir Lyon Playfair in his address as president of 

 the British Association for the Advancement of Science: 



Promote, then, as an object of pviinanj inijwrtauve. histitntious for the ficveral (lijf'iifiioii 

 of JiHoicIedtje. 



In proportion as the Ktructitre of a t/orerunient f/irei force In public opinion it .should be 

 enlightened. 



1^0 one has been able to show why Smithson selected the United 

 States as the seat of his foundation. He had no acquaintances in Amer- 

 ica, nor doeshe appear to have had any bt)oks relating to America except 

 two. Rliees quotes from one of these (Travels through IS'orth America, 

 by Isaac Weld, secretary of the Royal Society), a paragraph concerning 

 Washington, then a small town of 5,000 inhabitants, in which it is pre- 

 dicted that "the Federal city, as soon as navigation is perfected, will 

 increase most rai)idly, and that at a future day, if the aftairs of the 

 United States go on as rapidly as they have done, it will become the 

 grand emporium of the West and rival in magnitude and splendor the 

 cities of the whole w(»rld." 



