406 MEMORIAL OF JOSEPH HENRY. 



indicated, and a warm approval of the establishment proposed. 

 After a recapitulation and analysis of the several details, the com- 

 mittee pronounced the opinion that " The most novel and important 

 feature of the plan, is that which proposes to insure the publication 

 of memoirs and treatises on important subjects of investigation, and 

 to offer pecuniary encouragement to men of talent and attainment 

 to engage in scientific research. It is believed that no institution in 

 the country effects either of these objects to any great extent. The 

 nearest approach to it is the practice of the Academy and other 

 Philosophical Societies, of publishing the memoirs accepted by them. 

 These however can rarely be works of great compass. No system- 

 atic plan of compensation for the preparation of w r orks of scien- 

 tific research, is known by the committee to have been attempted 

 in this or any other country. It can scarcely be doubted that an 

 important impulse would be given by the Institution in this way 

 to the cultivation of scientific pursuits: while the extensive and 

 widely ramified system of distribution and exchange by which the 

 publications are to be distributed throughout the United States and 

 the world, would secure them a circulation which works of science 

 could scarcely attain in any other way. It is an obvious charac- 

 teristic of this mode of applying the funds of the Institution, that 

 its influence would operate most widely throughout the country; 

 that locality would be of comparatively little importance as far as 

 this influence is concerned; and that the Union would become (so 

 to say) in this respect a great school of mutual instruction." * 



Note I. (From p. 375.} 



THE ELECTION OF THE FIRST "SECRETARY." 



A special Committee of the Board of Regents appointed Septem- 

 ber 8th, 1 846, " to digest a plan to carry out the provisions of the 

 Act to establish the Smithsonian Institution," presented a somewhat 

 elaborate report December 1st, 1846; in which they thus express 

 themselves : 



"Before concluding their report, your committee desire to add a 

 few words touching the duty and qualifications of one of the officers 

 of the Institution. Inasmuch as the Chancellor of the Smithsonian 

 Institution being a regent, can receive no salary for his services, it 

 results almost necessarily that the Secretary should become its chief 



* This Report, dated Dec. 4, 1847, was signed by Edward Everett, Jared Sparks, 

 Benjamin Pierce, Henry W. Longfellow, and Asa Gray. (Smithsonian Report for 

 is 17, pp. 154, 155. Sen. ed.) 



