TWENTY-EIGHTH CONGRESS, 1843-1845. 285 



In the first place, to begin with the least important, I adopt, with 

 some modifications, the suggestion in the bill that lectures be delivered 

 in this city for two or three months during every session of Congress. 

 These lectures should be delivered, not by professors permanently 

 fixed here, upon annual salaries, to do nothing in the recess of Con- 

 gress, or to do nothing that can not be as well done at one hundred and 

 fifty other places, but b}^ gentlemen eminent in science and literature, 

 holding situations elsewhere, and coming hither under the stimulations 

 and with the ambition of a special and conspicuous retainer. They 

 might ))e professors of colleges, men of letters, persons distinguished 

 in the professions, or otherwise. Names will occur to you all which 1 

 need not mention ; and their lectures should be adapted to their audi- 

 ences. Who would their audiences be? Members of Congress with 

 their families, members of the Government with theirs, some inhab- 

 itants of this city, some few strangers who occasionally honor us with 

 visits of cui-iosity or business. They would be public men, of mature 

 years and minds; educated, disciplined to some degree, of liberal curi- 

 osity, and appreciation of generous and various knowledge. Such 

 would be the audience. The lectures should be framed accordingly. 

 I do not think they should be confined to three or four physical sci- 

 ences in their applications to the arts of life — navigation, useful or 

 hurtful insects and animals, the ventilation of rooms, or the smoking 

 of chimneys. This is knowledge, to be sure; but it is not all knowl- 

 edge, nor half of it, nor the best of it. Why should not such an audi- 

 ence hear something of the philosophy of history, of classical and of 

 South American antiquities, of international law, of the grandeur and 

 decline of states, of the progress and eras of freedom, of ethics, of 

 intellectual philosophy, of art, taste, and literature in its most com- 

 prehensive and noblest forms? Why should they not hear such lec- 

 tures as Sir James Mackintosh delivered when a young man to audiences 

 among whom were Canning, and such as he? Would it not be as 

 instructive to hear a first-rate scholar and thinker demonstrate out of 

 a chapter of Greek or Italian history how dreadful a thing it is for a 

 cluster of young and fervid democracies to dwell side by side, inde- 

 pendent and disunited, as it would to hear a chemist maintain that to 

 raise wheat you must have some certain proportion of lime in the soil ? 

 But the subjects of lectures would of course be adapted to time, place, 

 and circumstances, and varied with them. Whatever they should 

 treat of, they would be useful. They would recreate and refresh 

 and instruct you. They would relieve the monotony and soften the 

 austerity and correct all the influences of this kind of public service. 



But, Mr. President, all this is no administration of the fund; all 

 this ought to cost less than $5,000 a year. We could not sustain more 

 than one lecture in a week, nor that for more than three months of 

 any session. Here is an accumulated interest of $200,000; and here 



