10 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1908. 
scope of the Museum, a fact especially remarkable when it is recalled 
that at that date no museum of considerable size existed in the 
United States, and the museums of England and of the Continent of 
Europe were still to a large extent without a developed plan, although 
containing many rich collections. 
The Congress which passed the act of foundation enumerated as 
within the scope of the Museum “all objects of art and of foreign 
and curious research and all objects of natural history, plants, and 
geological and mineralogical specimens belonging to the United 
States,” thus stamping the Museum at the very outset as one of the 
widest range and at the same time as the Museum of the United 
States. It was also fully appreciated that additions would. be neces- 
sary to the collections then in existence, and provision was made for 
their increase by the exchange of duplicate specimens, by donations, 
and by other means. 
If the wisdom of Congress in so fully providing for a museum in 
the Smithsonian law challenges attention, the interpretation put 
upon this law by the Board of Regents within less than six months 
from the passage of the act éan not but command admiration. In the 
early part of September, 1846, the Regents took steps toward formu- 
lating a plan of operations. The report of the committee appointed 
for this purpose, submitted in December and January following, 
shows a thorough consideration of the subject in both the spirit and 
the letter of the law. It would seem not out of place to cite here the 
very first pronouncement of the Board with reference to the char- 
acter of the Museum: 
“In obedience to the requirements of the charter,* which leaves 
little discretion in regard to the extent of accommodations to be 
provided, your committee recommend that there be included in the 
building a museum of liberal size, fitted up to receive the collections 
destined for the Institution. 7 
“As important as the cabinets of natural history by the charter 
required to be included in the Museum your committee regard its 
ethnological portion, including all collections that may supply items 
in the physical history of our species and illustrate the manners, 
customs, religions, and progressive advance of the various nations 
of the world; as, for example, collections of skulls, skeletons, por- 
traits, dresses, implements, weapons, idols, antiquities, of the various 
races of man. * * * Tn this connexion your committee recom- 
mend the passage of resolutions asking the cooperation of certain 
@ Since the Institution was not chartered in a legal sense, but established by 
Congress, the use of the word * charter” in this connection would seem to be 
unauthorized. It was not subsequently employed. 
