REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 3 
conditions is impossible. The uplift of the physical, mental, and 
moral nature of the peoples of the Americas will come only through 
the increase and diffusion of such knowledge as will stimulate sound 
reasoning on existing conditions and racial limitations. Ethnology, 
anthropology, psychology, preventive medicine, education, are some 
of the tools that must be used in the shaping of the national, com- 
munity, and individual life of the future. In this great work the 
Smithsonian Institution will take such active part as opportunity 
and means permit. 
An article on “The Smithsonian Institution,” published in the 
North American Review, summarizes the history and work of the 
Institution, and concludes as follows: 
Such has been the result of a single benefaction of half a million of dollars, 
and perhaps no such result has ever been accomplished by so limited an en- 
dowment. Were the great sums given to swell the almost infinite endowments 
of some of our universities diverted to this unostentatious establishment, its 
power for good would be immeasurably increased, but, as it is, the bounty of a 
stranger and an alien has given the American people an agency for good whose 
influence is incalculable. It presents an opportunity to those who wish to 
bestow money for some beneficent purpose such as is given by no other on 
earth, and its scant means and petty endowment are a reproach to our rich 
and generous nation.? 
ADMINISTRATION. 
The affairs of the Institution proper have progressed in a satis- 
factory manner during the year. All communications have received 
prompt administrative consideration, and everything possible has 
been done to carry out the fundamental purposes of the Institution, 
“the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” 
In the administrative work of the various branches of the govern- 
ment service placed under the direction of the Institution, it has 
been the custom to fully avail myself of the assistance of the officers 
in charge of those branches, and I am glad to say that the business 
of the year has been carried on vigorously. The extended and com- 
plicated operations of the National Museum, including the National 
Gallery of Art and the erection of the new building, have been effect- 
ively managed by the assistant secretary in charge, Mr. Richard 
Rathbun. The International Exchanges, the brary, and the Inter- 
national Catalogue of Scientific Literature continued under the effi- 
cient charge of Dr. Cyrus Adler, until his resignation on October 1, 
1908, when he removed to Philadelphia to assume the presidency of 
the “Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning.” Doctor 
Adler entered the service of the Institution in 1888 as an assistant 
@The Smithsonian Institution, by Charles Minor Blackford, jr., M. D., North 
American Review, January, 1909. Reprinted as Senate Document No. 717, 
Sixtieth Congress, second session. 
