458 PROCEEDINGS OF 



exalted conditions. Our freedom will subserve them, but subordinate torever will 

 be our fame unless we comply witb thera. 



The Smithsonian fund is small in reference to the greatness and prospects of 

 this country ; but it is a gerni above price. It may be made a foundation in the 

 mtellectual career of our country. And here I come to a main purpose of this 

 paper. 



If it be asked in what way shall the fund be brought into activity, an answer is 

 at hand. Let it be engrafted upon the National Institute. This is no original pro- 

 position of mine. It has been a well-considored opinion. It came first from the 

 venerable Duponceau, and has met the concurrence of so many judgments entitled 

 to respect as now to form what may almost be called an enlightened public opi. 

 nion. Standing behind such leaders, I only come in with humble but earnest 

 co-operation. I would say, then, clothe this Institute with it; it is now suffering 

 for want of funds — the only want that it knows. It is rich in zeal, ricli in charac 

 ter, and already abundantly ripe in experience. 



If allowed to touch upon only some of its claims, I would go on to say, that it 

 is an Institute which, through the spontaneous and honorable zeal of its members, 

 and in a space more brief than has passed since the fund has been lying dead, has 

 made advances in scientific and literary usefulness creditable to itself and to the 

 country; an Institute composed of responsible public functionaries intermingling 

 with eminent private individuals, and under this, as other features in its organiza- 

 tion, a safe depository of the fund, whilst the practice of its own duties has given 

 assurance that it would administer it with ability ; an Institute which has nobly 

 toiled for a name and earned it, loving science for its own sake, and which now sees 

 upon its list, as members or correspondents, distinguished men and learned associa- 

 tions of foreign countries, in addition to those of our own. Confer it, then, I 

 would repeat, upon an Institute thus already recommended in so many cardinal 

 points to the public confidence and favor, and upon which Congress could imposo 

 all further conditions and guaranties necessary. 



Besides the advantages in taking this Institute as a basis for giving effect to the 

 will, fears start up that the fund may otherwise fall through. Delays produce 

 delays. Long inaction deadens the mind to its duties and energies, or cause it to 

 halt in indecision, or to be distracted by contrariety. An eminent judge, in deli- 

 vering an opinion from the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States not 

 long ago, remarked, that it had been with him "a subject of deep regret, that, not. 

 withstanding the numerous, consistent, most solemn, and (with some few excep- 

 tions) to his mind satisfactory adjudications of that court in expounding the Con- 

 stitution, its meaning yet remained as unsettled in political, professional, and 

 judicial opinion as it was immediately after its adoption ; and that if we were to 

 judge of the next by the results of the past half century, there was but slight 

 assurance that that instrument would be better understood at the expiration than it 

 was at the beginning of the period." 



To make the application in no irreverent sense to the constitution — for much 

 might be said to modify the ingenious extract — but under anxious feelings for the 

 Smithsonian fund, if the founding of an entirely new and independent institution 

 is thrown open as a debatable question at this time of day, in its whole compass 

 and details, a long interval may pass before we hear of a final decision. After the 

 procrastination and supineness already experienced, we should too probably see 

 postponed through long years the consummation desired. Let us rather rejoice 



