636 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



tory, that a laboratory implies researches, and researches 

 must be published. But, sir, I have looked through the 

 Smithsonian publications, and made inquiries with the view 

 of ascertaining w*hat results they contain, procured at the 

 Smithsonian laboratory. I could find none. I asked where 

 are the Smithsonian researches? Where are the " new 

 truths " which have been developed at the Smithsonian ? 

 The books published were contributed to knowledge by the 

 authors who wrote them, for the most part without pay. 

 The Smithsonian merely published them. The Smithsonian 

 laboratory is next to nothing, and nothing but experiments 

 and illustrations for lectures have come from it, as yet, so far 

 as I can find. 



Now these operations are held up as the exponent of 

 American activity in discovering new truths. I do not find 

 any very efficacious acticity ; and as to the proportion of 

 absolutely new truths due directly to the Smithsonian among 

 these publications, I fear they would, notwithstanding- all 

 the talk about them, 



"Should some cold critic dare to melt them down, 

 Roll in his crucible a shapeless mass, 

 A grain of gold leaf to a pound of brass." 



I do not, sir, by any means object to these publications, 

 on the ground that they do not contain new truths. I go for 

 truth, old or ne\v ; but 1 object to the holding them up before 

 the world as the measure of American active operations 

 in the discovery of truth, and as conveying the idea that 

 the Smithsonian Institution is the great active truth-discover- 

 ing engine of American science. The idea that it has been 

 eo, or would become so, although it has done more than all 

 else to encourage the present course of the institution, is, 

 in my opinion, fallacious. It cannot, I think, be too strongly 

 represented that discoveries are not made by direct active 

 operations of societies anywhere, but by the active operations 

 of individual minds, which minds may be in various ways 

 brought up to the effort. The hope of reward may, indeed, 

 serve sometimes as a stimulus; but I believe that the his- 

 tory of science shows that such rewards are generally 

 valuable as rewards rather than as incentives. The hope 

 of having results published, with the stamp of high approval, 

 may operate as an incentive to effort. But incentives, es- 

 pecially in this country, are less needed than means and 

 aids; and a library is one of the most effectual, and es- 

 pecially in this country the most needed, as a means and 

 .aid to exertion in the advancement of knowledge. 



Mr. Chairman, on this last day of the session, I have not 



