[Proceedings Uuited States National Museum, 1881. Appendix.] 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 

 xjisriTKiD STATICS Nj^moNA^iL. mixjsktjm:. 



No. 10. 



TWO I.ETTER8 OIV THE WORK OF THE NATIONAL, MUSEUOT. 

 By BARNET PHIEEIPS. 



[Reprinted, by permission, from the New York Times.] 



Washington, February 3, 1882. 



As early as 1846, with the establishing of the Smithsonian Institution, 

 Congress placed under its charge all objects of natural history, miner- 

 alogy, geology, and antiquities belonging to the United States. At that 

 time, some thirty-six years ago, such collections as belonged to the country 

 consisted almost entirely of objects gathered during the Wilkes explora- 

 tions. While the Smithsonian Institution was in the act of crystalliza- 

 tion, before it had taken definite shape, the Commissioner of Patents 

 took care of snch objects. Wiien, in 1856, the central portion of the 

 Smithsonian building was erected, the Wilkes collection and some few 

 other objects were placed in its charge. The Wilkes collection may, 

 however, be considered as having been that nucleus around which other 

 objects belonging to the United States have been grouped when in their 

 preservation the idea was sustained of presenting them for educational 

 puri^oses. But with the increase of such collections Avhich accompanied 

 that great desire for information which has been one of the marked 

 characteristics of a period included Within the last twenty years, this 

 augmentation has been marvelous. Those results of explorations, which 

 the best brains in the country may have condensed in a page or a vol- 

 ume, have only been studied by means of tangible things, coliected over 

 vast areas, and finally brought to Washington. But more than this. 

 In the industrial exhibitions in which this country has taken part, on 

 some special occasions the government has been to large expense in the 

 collecting of objects, as such exhibits were the very best representative 

 ones of the day. These have been too valuable to be lost sight of, and 

 have been preserved in their unity. At the same time, the United States 

 has had presented to it a great accumulation of objects, both natural 

 and manufactured, and among these gifts at the close of the Centennial 

 Exhibition not less than twenty-five countries contributed their quota. 



What to do with all this material became an important question. To 

 hide all this light under a bushel would be to deprive the country of a 

 fund of information obtainable nowhere else. The question of room 

 space to exhibit them Avas a secondary one to that method, a philosoph- 

 ical one, which should govern the classification of such a museum. Im- 

 mediately after the Centennial, when the i^ublic mind became more 



(563) 



