936 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 



In connection with this branch of Mr. Smithson's pur- 

 pose, your committee are reminded of the wide-spread and 

 beneficent influence, reaching to the remotest hamlet and 

 the humblest hearth, exerted, not in England alone, but in 

 other and distant countries, by the British " Society for the 

 Diffusion of Useful Knowledge," its Scientific Tracts, and 

 its Penny Magazine. 



This example indicates the most effectual mode of reach- 

 ing the popular mind of the world. Influenced by the 

 results of such experience, your committee recommend the 

 issuing, to such extent as the funds of the institution per- 

 mit, of publications, in brief and popular form, on subjects 

 of general interest. They advise, also, that courses of free 

 lectures be delivered during the session of Congivss, in the 

 lecture rooms of the institution, by its officers, or by able 

 men in the different branches of knowledge, who should 

 be invited for the purpose, and paid out of the funds of the 

 institution. It should also, your committee think, be made 

 the duty of the Secretary and his assistants to exhibit, in 

 these lecture rooms, at stated periods, experimental illustra- 

 tions of new discoveries in science, and interesting and 

 important inventions in the arts. 



And, if now or hereafter the funds of the institution per- 

 mit, they think it desirable that such lectures should not be 

 restricted to Washington, but should be given by lecturers 

 selected by the institution, throughout the United States. 



The difficulty, in this latter recommendation, is the great 

 expense that must be incurred to procure the delivery of 

 such lectures by men of suitable ability, throughout every 

 section of the Union, without preference or omission. 



Though neither the bequest nor the charter restrict the 

 subjects that may be treated in publication and lecture, yet, 

 as the funds of the institution are limited, and some selec- 

 tion from the vast range of human subjects of inquiry must 

 be made, your committee recommend, that, in the first 

 place, the efforts of the institution be chiefly directed to the 

 diffusion of knowledge in tin- physical sciences, in the use- 

 ful arts, and in the theory and practice of public education. 

 They suggest, that the lectures and popular publications of 

 the institution may usefully treat, of agriculture and its 

 latest improvements ; of the productive arts of life ; of the 

 sciences, and the aid they bring to labor; of common- 

 school instruction, including the proper construction of 

 school rooms, the most improved apparatus for teaching, 

 and the most judicious management, moral and intellectual, 

 of children in common schools. They might also, if suit- 



