XVI PEOCEEDINGS OF THE BOAKD OF REGENTS. 



that it is also practicable to organize, coordinate, and direct such work as to make it 

 eminently effective. 



"The committee has been greatly desirous that some existing agency be found to 

 undertake such work of organization, coordination, and direction, and has naturally 

 turned to the Smithsonian Institution as the one best fitted for the purpose. 



"Each of its great secretaries — Henry, Baird, and Langley — in the language of 

 President Oilman, ' has been free and has felt free to open new roads and enter fresh 

 fields when the public good required it.' 



"The permanence of its organization, its objects, and purposes, as expressed in the 

 will of its founder, viz, ' the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men; ' the fact 

 that it has nobly performed and is still nobly performing many of the functions 

 incident to the proposed scheme of graduate study and research, by the encourage- 

 ment of investigation and research, the study of local history and archaeology, and 

 the founding of libraries and museums; its broad catholicity and its freedom from 

 partisan influences, have led the committee to hope that it might feel free to take 

 the work in hand. 



"It already has all the officers and agents for its successful general control, and to 

 them could wisely be left the selection of such additional officers and agents as might 

 be necessary to direct the details of successful administration. It could wisely con- 

 trol and direct the application of all funds appropriated or donated for its support. 



"The committee has thought that, i^erhaps, the Secretary and Eegents might not 

 look favorably upon the idea of constituting the Smithsonian the i^ermanent agent 

 for the control and direction of such graduate work, but that they might be willing 

 to take the initiative in its organization and direction, and when a successful plan 

 was fully developed, might generously relinquish its control to a separate and inde- 

 pendent management, such as experience might suggest to be more wise and effective, 

 as it did under Henry in the case of the Weather Bureau, under Baird in the cases of 

 the National INIuseum, the Fish Commission, and the Bureau of P'thnology, and as it 

 has done under Langley in the cases of the Astrophysical 01)servatory and the 

 National Zoological Park. 



"Any positive recommendation as to the agency for the organization, coordination, 

 and direction of the proposed graduate work, and any detailed plan of organization, 

 are therefore held in abeyance. 



"The committee is unable, at the present time, to present a complete outline of 

 the legislation necessary to effect the general purposes of the resolution. 



"It submits tentatively, however, that Congress might be asked to provide for the 

 establishment of an administrative office in Washington, preferably in the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, in which graduate students of the institutions we represent, and 

 others as well, might be enrolled and directed to the appropriate department. 



"To maintain this office, pay the expenses of administration, support graduate 

 courses of research, freely open to the graduate students of the land-grant and other 

 colleges without distinction, sex, or color, on such terms as the administrative office 

 should prescribe, and to aid such students in their researches. Congress might be 

 asked to make an appropriation of, say, $25,000, to be increased annually $1,000, to 

 be expended under the discretion of the institution or department in which the office 

 of administration may l)e located." 



It ap])earK that this report of its conunittee was unanimously adopted l)y the Asso- 

 ciation, and its secretary, Mr. MacLean, under date of December 16, 1898, communi- 

 cated to Mr. Langley, as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, a full report of 

 the proceedings of the Association on the subject. A short extract from Mr. Mac- 

 Lean's letter will best explain the object and purpose of the communication. It is 

 aafollow's: 



"The committee have resolved respectfully to ask you and through you the 

 Regents of the Smithsonian Institution to consider the action of the Association, and 

 in particular, the matter of the report on pages xviii, xix. 



