SECRETARY’S REPORT 5 
the thousands of visitors who throng the Museum daily. As thus 
displayed it bears the following label: 
The Original 
WRIGHT BROTHERS’ AEROPLANE 
The world’s first 
power-driven heavier-than-air machine in which man 
made free, controlled, and sustained flight 
Invented and built by Wilbur and Orville Wright 
Flown by them at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina 
December 17, 1903 
By original scientific research the Wright Brothers 
discovered the principles of human flight 
As inventors, builders, and flyers 
they further developed the aeroplane, taught man to fly 
and opened the era of aviation 
Deposited by the Estate of Orville Wright 
° 
“The first flight lasted only twelve seconds, a flight very modest compared 
with that of birds, but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in 
which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air 
in free flight, had sailed forward on a level course without reduction of speed, and 
had finally landed without being wrecked. The second and third flights were a 
little longer, and the fourth lasted 59 seconds covering a distance of 852 feet over 
the ground against a 20 mile wind.’”—W1.LzBur and OrvILLE WriGcaHt. 
(From Century Magazine, vol. 76, September 1908, p. 649.) 
This is not the final resting place of the plane, however—it is 
destined eventually to occupy the place of honer in the National Air 
Museum, the most recent bureau of the Smithsonian Institution. 
Preliminary plans for the Air Museum envision a special centrally 
located exhibit area for the Wright aeroplane of 1903, to serve as a 
memorial to the birth of aviation. 
THE ESTABLISHMENT 
The Smithsonian Institution was created by act of Congress in 
1846, according to the terms of the will of James Smithson, of England, 
who in 1826 bequeathed his property to the United States of America 
“to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge 
among men.’ In receiving the property and accepting the trust, 
Congress determined that the Federal Government was without 
authority to administer the trust directly, and, therefore, constituted 
an ‘establishment’? whose statutory members are “the President, 
the Vice President, the Chief Justice, and the heads of the executive 
departments.” 
