838 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 



Letter from Thomas Cooper. 



COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, July 20, 1838. 



SIR : With respect to the Smithson legacy, two courses 

 only suggest themselves to my mind ; one, annual premiums 

 for the best treatises on given subjects, which we have not 

 literary and scientific men enough to supply or to enter into 

 anything like competition with the Briclgewater Treatises, 

 and, therefore, we should only be disgraced by it; and, 

 therefore, I cannot recommend this mode of application. 

 Add to which, it would be very apt to degenerate into a 

 political and party institution, in various ways. The other 

 is an institution of the character of an university. I arn 

 well aware the power of erecting an university was twice 

 refused to Congress, in the convention of 1787. But the 

 objection may be gotten over by transferring the donation 

 to the corporation of Georgetown, under such limitations as 

 may be expedient and constitutional, and let an university 

 be instituted by that corporation. This would be a suffi- 

 cient approximation to Mr. Smithson's required locality, 

 and would obviate the constitutional objection. 



Such an university ought not to be opened, except to 

 graduates of other colleges. The studies might be the 

 higher algebraical calculus ; the application of mathematics 

 to practical mechanical knowledge of every description, and 

 to astronomy, to chemistry, electricity, and galvanism ; the 

 principles of botany and agriculture. No Latin or Greek ; 

 no mere literature. Things, not words. 



Strict attendance ; strict and public examinations. I ob- 

 ject to all belles-lettres, and philosophical literature, as calcu- 

 lated only to make men pleasant talkers. I object to 

 medicine, which cannot be well taught in a locality of less 

 than 100,000 inhabitants. 



I object to law; for all that can be orally delivered can 

 be more profitably and deliberately learnt by perusal. 

 Ethics and politics are as yet unsettled branches of knowl- 

 edge. 



Whether physiology and political economy ought to be 

 rejected, requires more consideration than I can at this 

 moment bestow. I want to see those studies cultivated, 

 which, in their known tendencies and results, abridge 

 human labor, and increase and multiply the comforts of 

 existence to the great mass of mankind. Public education 

 should be useful, not ornamental. 



The course should not be less than three years, of ten 

 months each. The instruction afforded gratis; examinations 



