PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 909 1 



numerous, more palpable, more accessible and therefore 

 more generally enjoyed by the nation at large than those 

 of any other single establishment. If this be true, should 

 we not unite, as with one voice, in urging the accomplish- 

 ment of so noble a design? And may we not indulge the 

 hope that our public servants who profess such eagerness 

 to gratify the wishes of their constituents would promptly 

 respond to so reasonable a request ? To doubt their compli- 

 ance with such a manifestation of the sovereign will would 

 be treason against the very theory of our Government. I 

 shall be guilty of no such political heresy. I shall antici- 

 pate no such contumacious neglect of representative duty; 

 but will look forward with confidence to the day, when the 

 citizens of this Republic shall possess all the means, and 

 enjoy all the advantages, of intellectual culture which have 

 been hitherto monopolized by the subjects of European 

 monarchies. 



Let us, then, never falter in our efforts, nor halt for an 

 instant in our career of improvement, until our temples of 

 Science shall vie with the noblest of those beyond the 

 Atlantic. And while the Frenchman justly glories in the 

 Jardin des Plantes while the Briton boasts, with reason, of 

 the Royal Garden at Kew and even the Russian, in his 

 frozen clime, is warmed into admiration by the Imperial 

 Conservatory of the Czars let American freemen, in their 

 turn, be enabled to point, with patriotic pride, to a National 

 Institution, of no less beauty and value, at the Metropolis of 

 their own favored land. 



