570 CONGRESSIONAL 'PROCEEDINGS. 



cellor, and the speaker of the House of Commons were considered as 

 the real acting 1 governors of the institution." A new committee of 

 15 was appointed, composed of distinguished persons, and author- 

 ized to send for persons, papers, and records. It held 28 meetings, 

 and reported to the House of Commons on the 14th day of July, 

 1836. Certain improvements were made in the condition of the insti- 

 tution as the result of these Parliamentary proceedings. 



The public mind seems to have become again excited on the subject, 

 by complaints arising from the community and from officers of the 

 Institution, and in 1847 a royal commission was formed, consisting of 

 four noblemen and eight commoners, all eminent persons. They prose- 

 cuted their researches with great diligence, and the result of their 

 labors, in 1850, was a folio volume of more than 1,000 pages. The 

 whole number of questions and answers is 10,933. The chairman of 

 the commission was the Earl of Ellesmere. He presented an elaborate, 

 full, and independent report. One or two extracts may be read with 

 advantage by those who have the management of literary and scientific; 

 institutions: 



Such a board of trustees, to anyone who considers the individuals who compose it 

 with reference to their rank, intelligence, and ability, would give assurance rather 

 than promise of the most unexceptionable and, indeed, wisest administration in 

 every department. High attainments in literature and in science, great knowledge 

 and experience of the world and its affairs, and practiced habits of business dis- 

 tinguish many of them in an eminent degree; and it would be unjust either to 

 deny the interest which all of them feel in the prosperity of the institution or refrain 

 from acknowledging the devoted services which some of them have rendered iu its 

 administration. But, on the other hand, absorbing public cares, professional avo- 

 cations, and the pursuits of private life must, in many instances, prevent those indi- 

 viduals whose assistance might have been best relied on from giving anything like 

 continued attention to the affairs of the institution. 



While the report alludes in the above language to the inability of 

 such official persons in general to attend with sufficient particularity 

 to any extra business incidental to affairs out of the sphere of their 

 more appropriate duties, it makes an exception in favor of the arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury, who, in the words of the report, "gave to its 

 affairs more time and attention than we could have supposed it possi- 

 ble for a person the most active to have spared from his momentous 

 and sacred duties. " 



The commissioners dwell at length upon the fact that the trustees 

 were not in the habit of communicating directly with any other officers 

 of the institution but the secretary, as in the following passage: 



The secretary attends all the meetings, and the officers of the establishment gen- 

 erally are perfectly aware of the extent of his influence and control over the busi- 

 ness, while he has no direct responsibility for the conduct or actual state of any 

 department. 



There may be many cases, certainly, in which it is not expedient only but neces- 

 sary that the board should deliberate in the absence even of the principal librarian 



