598 COT^GRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



abandon their researches for the want of books. For us this case of 

 Humboldt is remarkably apropos. 



In order to show how intensely active these "active operations" 

 are, the gentleman from Indiana has quoted a long list of works pub- 

 lished by the Institution. But, sir, you will probably be surprised to 

 learn that with the exception of a few octavo pamphlets, making in 

 all only about 1,000 pages, the first six titles include the whole that 

 follow. The rest are merely the table of contents of the first six. 

 Six quarto volumes making less than 3,000 pages and about enough in 

 octavo to make a volume of 1,000 pages exhibit the sum and substance 

 of the "active operations" of the Smithsonian Institution for eight 

 years — sa}^ 500 pages, great and small, a 3^ear. 



I have heard it argued that the "active operations" are justifiable 

 on the ground that Congress ordained a laboratory, that a laboratory 

 implies researches, and researches must be published. But, sir, I 

 have looked through the Smithsonian publications, and made inquiries 

 with the view of ascertaining what results they contain, procured at 

 the Smithsonian laboratory. I could find none. I asked where are 

 the Smithsonian researches ? Where are the ' ' new truths " which have 

 been developed at the Smithsonian? The books published were con- 

 tributed to knowledge by the authors who wrote them, for the most 

 part without pay. The Smithsonian merely published them. The 

 Smithsonian laboratory is next to nothing, and nothing but experi- 

 ments and illustrations for lectures have come from it, as yet, so far 

 as I can find. 



Now these operations are held up as the exponent of American 

 activity in discovering new truths. I do not find any very efiScacious 

 activity, and, as to the proportion of absolutely new truths due 

 directly to the Smithsonian among these publications, I fear they 

 would, notwithstanding all the talk about them. 



Should some cold critic dare to melt them down, 

 Roll in his crucible a shapeless mass, 

 A grain of gold leaf to a pound of brass. 



I do not, sir, by any means object to these publications on the 

 ground that they do not contain new truths. I go for truth, old or 

 new, but I object to the holding them up before the world as the meas- 

 ure of American active operations in the discovery of truth and as 

 conveying the idea that the Smithsonian Institution is the great active 

 truth-discovering engine of American science. The idea that it has 

 been so, or would become so, although it has done more than all else 

 to encourage the present course of the Institution, is, in my opinion, 

 fallacious. It can not, I think, be too strongly represented that dis- 

 coveries are not made by direct active operations of societies any- 

 where, but by the active operations of individual minds, which minds 

 may be in various ways brought up to the effort. The hope of reward 



