REPORT OF THE SECRETARY 11 
various bureaus have long since outgrown the present housing facili- 
ties and physical equipment. Many of the Institution’s activities, both 
scientific and administrative, are undermanned, leading to some degree 
of failure to enter upon desirable new enterprises. Financial resources, 
public and private, should be increased to promote the Institution’s op- 
portunities for advancement of knowledge through research and pub- 
lication. The public exhibits in the National Museum, viewed by 
more than 2,000,000 visitors each year, require modernization, begun 
in 1940 but postponed because of the war. Resources available for 
printing and binding have not been sufficient to enable the Institution 
to keep pace with the manuscript output of the scientific staff or to keep 
abreast of the necessary binding in the Smithsonian library of 1,000,- 
000 volumes. This condition has led to the creation of a large backlog 
of unpublished scientific manuscripts, and of unbound periodicals in 
the library. 
The first step toward improvement is the recognition of weaknesses. 
Having outlined important ones, I may take some satisfaction in stat- 
ing that plans are now shaping up to remedy them. A building pro- 
gram to relieve the present overcrowding is already outlined, and the 
outlook is bright that before many years more building space will be 
available to assure proper operation and normal expansion. Definite 
efforts have already been started to obtain funds to increase the per- 
sonnel where it is most needed, to make a beginning on modernization 
of exhibits, and to keep more nearly abreast of the manuscripts pro- 
duced by the scientific staff, so essential to the Institution’s responsibil- 
ities in the diffusion of knowledge. 
When the Smithsonian Institution was founded 100 years ago, it 
stood almost alone in America as an organization devoted solely to 
the promotion of science and of learning in general. During the first 
century of its existence, other large foundations have come into being— 
some of them with far larger resources—until today there are in 
America scores of research institutions and laboratories, some of them 
independent foundations, some attached to universities, and others 
forming essential parts of large industrial concerns. While many of 
these are restricted to specific lines of scientific work, the Smithsonian 
Institution has no limitation in scope of activity as long as its en- 
deavors operate to increase and diffuse knowledge. It can therefore 
enter into any new fields of investigation that are feasible with the 
funds and personnel at its command, but in order to make its work 
most effective in the increase of knowledge, the Institution must now 
plan carefully to avoid duplicating the efforts of other research 
organizations. 
At the close of its first century of operation and standing at the 
threshold of the second century, the Institution’s first concern will be 
