8 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1914, 
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 can 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 
letter of the law. It would seem not out of place to cite here the 
first pronouncement of the board with reference to the character of 
the Museum: 
“Tn 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, = up to receive the collections 
destined for the Institution. * * 
“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, portraits, 
dresses, implements, weapons, idols, antiquities, of the various races 
of man. * * * In this connexion your committee recommend the 
passage of resolutions asking the cooperation of certain public fune- 
tionaries and of the public generally in furtherance of the above 
objects. 
“Your committee are further of opinion that in the Museum, if 
the funds of the Institution permit, might judiciously be included 
various series of models illustrating the progress of some of the most 
useful inventions; such, for example, as the steam engine from its 
earliest and rudest form to its present most improved state; but this 
1 Since the Institution was not chartered in a legal sense, but established by 
Congress, the use of the word ‘“ charter” in this connection was not correct. 
