1853-55. 597 



formation of a library of less than $2,000, any intermediate 

 um between that and the entire income of the fund would 

 have been of equal authority and significance, as indicating 

 the intention of the legislature, whichever of the said inter- 

 mediate sums might have been inserted in the act. That is 

 to say those who maintain that the language and design 

 of the act are carried out by expending less than $2,000 

 annually for books, assume and assert that it would not 

 have altered the sense of the act had $2,000 or $10,000 or 

 $40,000 been the sum actually named in it, instead of 

 .$25,000! 



The ninth section of the act is as follows : 



" And be it further enacted, That of any other moneys which have ac- 

 crued, or shall hereafter accrue, as interest upon the said Smithsonian fund, 

 not herein appropriated, or not required for the purposes herein provided, 

 the said managers are hereby authorized to make such disposal as they shall 

 deem best suited for the promotion of the purpose of the testator, anything 

 herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding." 



The discretion allowed to the managers in the latter part 

 of this section must be considered as limited, in some sense 

 by the word " other," applied to u moneys," and more defi- 

 nitely and more absolutely by the clauses, " not herein ap- 

 propriated," and " not required for the purposes herein pro- 

 vided." 



The meaning of the ninth section seems to us to be simply 

 this that if, after all has been done required by the forego- 

 ing provisions of the act, that is, for the maintenance and 

 preservation of a geological and mine-ralogical cabinet, a 

 laboratory, library, gallery of art, lecture room, lectures, 

 the purchase of books on the scale indicated in the eighth 

 section, and the discharge of all current obligations, an 

 unexpended balance of the annual income remains, the 

 managers may do with it just what they please; may ex- 

 pend it upon books if they like, even although the expendi- 

 tures for that object may have already reached the assigned 

 limit, or upon any objects not named or alluded to in the 

 .act, if, in their judgment, " suited for the promotion of the 

 purpose of the testator." 



The committee are wholly unwilling to enter at all into 

 the discussion of the private grievances, or personal contro- 

 versies, or official misunderstandings which were brought 

 before them in the course of the investigation. They regard 

 the evidence that was educed on these matters as important 

 only because it illustrates the difficulties encountered in 

 administering an institution of this sort upon the plan that 

 has been attempted. They are particularly desirous to have 

 it understood that they attach no blame to any person, in 



