PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON^S BEQUEST. - 863 



The individuals who control the Girard fund have employed 

 .an individual, at the enormous salary of $4,000 a year, to 

 travel in Europe, to ascertain the best methods of instruc- 

 tion. I will undertake to say, without vanity, that I will 

 .sit here in my office, and from my knowledge of the Ger- 

 man and French languages, I will, in nine months, collect 

 more information on the subject of education, than that in- 

 dividual can or will, and, in addition thereto, I will, without 

 charging Government a cent, except my needful expenses, 

 attend at the fairs of Leipzig, and purchase in Germany and 

 France, a library for the new university, encyclopedic in its 

 character, and for half the price that it could be done in 

 England. The legacy, if I am correctly informed, amounts 

 to $500,000, if thereof $50,000 is devoted to the purchase 

 of apparatus, (the best can be procured in Munich, in Ger- 

 many,) and $150,000 for the library, you will have $300,000 

 to endow ten professorships, at $1,500 salary, arising from 

 the interest, at five per cent, per annum of the $300,000. 

 Congress must supply appropriations to erect a hall for lec- 

 tures and for the library and apparatus, and to endow any 

 other professorship necessary. There should be one profes- 

 sorship of pure mathematics, one of applied mathematics, 

 one of astronomy, one of the other branches of physics, or 

 what we commonly call natural philosophy ; one of natural 

 history, for it is a disgraceful fact that in none of our col- 

 leges do they teach Cuvier, Buffon, Oken, or our own Wil- 

 son and Audubon. One professorship arising out of the 

 last, to wit : for the science of rearing and taking care of 

 all domestic animals and agricultural products. One would 

 suppose that these two last professorships would be of some 

 use in a country whose riches arise from their sheep, their horses, 

 and if not now, in a very short time, from their silk worms. 

 Education begins now to be a synonymous term with the 

 progressive advancement of our race, and of these things 

 men have begun to study the philosophy one of chem- 

 istry, theoretical, one of chemistry, applied to manufacture, 

 one of chemistry applied to agriculture. Let me say, that 

 on this subject professorships cannot be too much multi- 

 plied it is the great lever of the world one of oriental 

 languages,* one of modern languages,f one of Latin and 



*N. B. I would add that our relations begin to multiply with the East 

 in embassies, and our missionaries want the Oriental professorship. 



f Almost every civilized country deems it necessary that their diplomatic 

 agents should be able to converse with the people to whom they are sent : 

 does ours ? Then the professorship of modern European languages would 

 be of use. 



