REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1912. 9 



" Specimens of staple materials, of their gradual manufacture, and 

 of the finished product of manufactures and the arts may also, your 

 committee think, be' usefully introduced. This would supply op- 

 portunity to examine samples of the best manufactured articles our 

 country affords, and to judge her gradual progress in arts and 

 manufactures. * * * 



" The gallery of art, your committee think, should include both 

 paintings and sculpture, as well as engravings and architectural de- 

 signs; and it is desirable to have in connexion with it one or more 

 studios in which young artists might copy without interruption, 

 being admitted under such regulations as the board may prescribe. 

 Your committee also think that, as the collection of paintings and 

 sculpture will probably accumulate slowly, the room destined for 

 a gallery of art might properly and usefully meanwhile be occupied 

 during the sessions of Congress as an exhibition room for the works 

 of artists generally; and the extent and general usefulness of such 

 an exhibition might probably be increased if an arrangement could 

 be effected with the Academy of Design, the Arts-Union, the Artists' 

 Fund Society, and other associations of similar character, so as to 

 concentrate at the metropolis for a certain portion of each winter 

 the best results of talent in the fine arts." 



The important points in the foregoing report are (1) that it was 

 the opinion of the Regents that a museum was requisite under the 

 law. Congress having left no discretion in the matter; (2) that 

 ethnology and anthropology, though not specially named, were yet 

 as important subjects as natural history; (3) that the history of the 

 progress of useful inventions and the collection of the raw materials 

 and products of the manufactures and arts should also be provided 

 for; (4) for the gallery of art the (jommittee had models in exist- 

 ence, and they proposed, pending the gathering of art collections, 

 which would of necessity be slow, to provide for loan exhibitions 

 by cooperating with art academies and societies. 



In the resolutions which were adopted upon the presentation of the 

 report, a museum was mentioned as " one of the principal modes 

 of executing the act and trust." ^ The work was to go forward as 



^Resolved, That it is tbe iutentiou of tlae act of Congress establisliing the 

 Institution, and in accordance with the design of Mr. Smithson, as expressed in 

 his will, that one of the principal modes of executing the act and the trust is 

 the accumulation of collections of si>ecimens and objects of natural history and 

 of elegant art, and the gradual formation of a library of valuable works per- 

 taining to all departments of human knowledge, to the end that a copious store- 

 house of materials of science, literature, and art may be provided which shall 

 excite and diffuse the love of learning among men, and shall assist the original 

 investigations and efforts of those who may devote themselves to the pursuit 

 of any branch of knowledge. 



