602 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



organization to which several officers are attached such a 

 provision is highly desirable, but pre-eminently so where the 

 said officers are gentlemen of scientific and literary attain- 

 ment and reputation. The spirit of self-respect and a sen- 

 sitiveness to personal rights prevail nowhere with greater 

 keenness and intensity than in the republic of letters. 



The Smithsonian Institution stands on a different footing 

 from any in this country, and, in some particulars, especially 

 in regard to the peculiar character of our Government, in 

 any other country. In some leading features it, perhaps. 

 bears a closer resemblance to the British Museum than to 

 any other. The recent history of that institution may, per- 

 haps, be found instructive to us. 



The British Museum was founded about a hundivd ycais 

 ago, upon the conditional bequest by an individual of prop- 

 erty less in amount than the bequest of Smithson. It lias 

 since received some two millions of pounds sterling of thr 

 public funds. 



Within the last twenty years then- have been two >rlrrt 

 committees of the House of Commons and one royal com- 

 mission appointed to inquire into the condition, manage- 

 ment, and affairs of this institution. 



Its government is vested in a board of trustees, in num- 

 ber forty-eight, one of whom (II. R. II. the Duke of Cam- 

 bridge) is directly named by the crown, twenty-three are 

 regents ex officio, nine are named by the representatives or 

 executors of parties who have been donors to the institution, 

 and fifteen are elected. 



The following is a list of the trustees : 



EX OFFICIO. 



The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, the Speaker of the 

 House of Commons, principal trustees ; the President of the Council ; the 

 First Lord of the Treasury ; the Lord Privy Seal ; the First Lord of the 

 Admiralty; the Lord Steward ; the Lord Chamberlain; the Colonial Sec- 

 retary of State; the Foreign Secretary of State ; the Home Secretary of 

 State ; the Bishop of London ; the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; the Lord 

 Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench ; the Lord Chief Justice of the Common 

 Pleas ; the Master of the Rolls : the Attorney General ; the Solicitor Gen- 

 eral; the President of the Royal Society ; the President of the College of 

 Physicians ; the President of the Society of Antiquaries ; the President of 

 the Royal Academy. 



FAMILY TRUSTEES. 



The Earl of Cadogan, Lord Stanley, Sloane family ; George Booth Tyn- 

 dale, Esq., Rev. Francis Annesley, Cotton family; Lord H. W. Bontinck, 

 the Earl of Cawdor, Harlein family; Charles Townlcy, Esq., Townlcv 

 family; the Earl of Elgin, Elgin family; John Knight, Esq., Knight 

 family. 



ELECTED TRUSTEES. 



The Earl of Aberdeen ; the Earl of Derby ; the Duke of Rutland ; the 

 Marquis of Lansdowne ; Sir Robert Peel, bart. ; the Duke of Hamilton; 



