SAMUEL PIERl'ONT LANGI.EY. I7 



for the National Park at Washington, and for the Zoological Garden 

 which forms part of it ; another in his desire for a National Museum 

 worthy of a great republic; and finally, most of all, toward the 

 close of his life, in his efforts— which were finally successful— to 

 make a beginning of a museum of art. It is, perhaps, due Langley's 

 fame, and even his good name, to say that his steady effort to over- 

 come the legal and legislative difficulties in the way of bringing the 

 Freer collection to the Smithsonian was carried on uncomplainingly 

 in the midst of attacks by the press upon him and upon the Regents 

 for "neglecting so important a matter." 



In these latter activities he departed somewhat from the policy of 

 the great man who first marked out a course for the Smithsonian 

 Institution, Joseph Henry, and from the theory and practice of his 

 immediate predecessor, Spencer Baird. All three of these men were 

 right. It was most fortunate that Henry, during the first years of 

 the Institution, insisted on rejecting a multitude of projects, each 

 attractive, but which, had they been adopted at that early period, 

 would have initiated policies distracting and possibly mutually 

 destructive. But when Langley showed his willingness to bring the 

 Smithsonian into additional relations with the deep feeling of think- 

 ing Americans that our capital city should be made worthy of the 

 Republic, all danger of departure from the intentions of James 

 Smithson was past. The great line of policy which Smithson sug- 

 gested, which Henr}^ founded, which Baird and Langley continued, 

 was secure, and the breadth of Langley's mind led him to see that 

 the Smithsonian Institution could now be made the center for a new 

 "increase and diffusion of knowledge" among his own countrymen 

 which up to his time it had not been wise to undertake. 



And here should be mentioned a characteristic which distin- 

 guished him in a striking way from both his predecessors. Each of 

 these was a strong man, even a great man, in the branch of science 

 which he had chosen. But neither of them had any striking en- 

 thusiams outside of science. With Langley it was otherwise. 

 Eminent at home and abroad in a new and fruitful branch of scien- 

 tific research, he had various other enthusiasms and a greater 

 breadth of view than had either of his predecessors. He loved art 

 with a deep and abiding love, and was competent to discuss it in its 

 highest manifestations. History and literature he had so thoroughly 

 studied in some of their most fruitful fields that he would have done 

 honor to any institution in the land as a professor in them. In 

 various periods of English history and literature he had made 

 studies which led competent authorities, at no less a literary center 



