LETTERS ON PROGRAMME OF ORGANIZATION. 981 



^,n Institution. And in respect to co-operating in cases 

 where it may be required, and where we have the ability to 

 do so, will be most cheerfully given. 



From A. C. Kendrick. 



MADISON UNIVERSITY, 

 HAMILTON, K Y., January, 1849. 



Owing to the peculiar circumstances of our Institution 

 being without a president, and an exciting question pend- 

 ing as to its location, and also some questions pertaining to 

 its organization being yet unsettled, you will not, I trust, 

 regard it as disrespectful that your valuable communication 

 has remained so long unacknowledged. 



Permit me in the first place, as the librarian of the Insti- 

 tution, to tender to you our sincere thanks for the very 

 valuable donation which we have received from your Insti- 

 tution, and the deep interest which we feel in its objects and 

 prosperity. As you request the president's opinion, if he 

 approves the plan of the Institution and suggestions, I sup- 

 pose that in the absence of a president, you will scarcely 

 expect an answer to these questions. Permit me to say, 

 however, that having examined the Programme of Organi- 

 zation, I am deeply interested in it, and highly gratified 

 with, and feel confident that it cannot but prove a most 

 powerful auxiliary to the cause of sound learning and 

 refined taste in this country. I shall submit the paper to my 

 colleagues, and any suggestions which they may make I 

 shall forward to you. The only suggestion that has 

 occurred to me is the inquiry whether ancient literature, con- 

 sidering the intimate connection which it sustains with 

 modern, being in no slight degree its source and parent, and 

 also considering this liability to be pushed aside by the 

 enlarging boundaries and exciting nature of scientific studies 

 and of modern literature, might not justly have a place 

 among the specific objects to which the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tute shall devote its inquiries. Is not the total omission of 

 this subject a defect in the plan of a national institution so 

 comprehensive as that of the Smithsonian Institution? 

 Considering also the connection of the ancient literature 

 with the fine arts, do we not find an additional reason for 

 including this branch of study. Deeply penetrated as I am 

 with the conviction that the ancient languages and litera- 

 ture must ever hold an indissoluble connection with the 

 highest liberal culture, I can scarcely reconcile myself to the 

 the entire omission of this class of studies in the plan of In- 



